The Feral Child

by Che Golden

  “You’ve been telling lies again,” snapped Aunt Fionnula.

  Maddy stood by the door to the kitchen and just glared at her. Her grandparents sat in their chairs on either side of her aunt. Granny had obviously been crying. Granda just looked very tired. What on earth had she done? If it was this bad, why couldn’t she remember?

  “Well, what have you got to say for yourself, young lady?” demanded Aunt Fionnula.

  “You haven’t told me what I’m supposed to have done yet,” she said.

  Aunt Fionnula looked happy, which meant Maddy had just shot herself in the foot. “Oh, it’s not what you are supposed to have done, Maddy. It’s what you have done,” she said. “Mrs. Mackie heard you the other day, and she told me she was shocked to hear a child so brazen. In the shop, trying to jump the queue, telling people you needed to get out quickly because your parents were waiting for you in the car.”

  Maddy had forgotten about that. It had seemed like such a small lie. Trust Mrs. Mackie to hear her and go running off to tell tales to this shiny, stiff, grim-faced hag.

  “Leave the poor child alone, Fionnula. This not doing anyone any good,” said Granda.

  “We have to put a stop to this, Da,” Fionnula snapped.

  She turned back to Maddy. “Why do you do it? Why do you tell people your parents are still alive?” she demanded.

  Maddy stood there, staring at her. Her body prickled all over with fear and embarrassment. Isn’t it obvious? she felt like screaming. Isn’t it bloody obvious?

  There was a tiny sound in the room, a rush of air. Maddy looked at Roisin, who was going as red as a tomato. The sound had been her intake of breath as she opened her mouth to speak, but she froze in her mother’s gimlet stare.

  “Have you something to say, young lady?” Aunt Fionnula snapped at Roisin.

  “Um, well . . . just . . . you know . . . it’s not that bad. Is it?” Roisin offered in a voice that got smaller and smaller.

  “What isn’t?” asked Aunt Fionnula in a voice that dripped pure acid.

  “Er, what she said?” said Roisin.

  “Clearly you and I don’t agree on what is acceptable behavior,” hissed Aunt Fionnula. “Be quiet. I will talk to you later.”

  Roisin shrank back against the wall and looked at her feet, her face practically throbbing from the heat of her blush.

  Aunt Fionnula turned back to Maddy. “I’m still waiting for my answer. And my patience is wearing thin.”

  Maddy glared back at her aunt and shrugged her shoulders. Aunt Fionnula’s eyes bulged in her head, and then she ran at Maddy, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her.

  “Why do you do it? Are you trying to upset us all?” she screamed, red in the face, spit flying off her yellow teeth. “Is it not bad enough your mother and father are gone, without your telling lies about them? How can my mother bear to have you in her house when you say things like that?”

  “Get off me!” Maddy shoved her aunt in the chest to break her grip and then swung her hand, hard, and clocked her a good one right in the face. In the shocked silence, Maddy could see the imprint of her fingers start to glow on her aunt’s white cheek. All the anger drained out of her, and fear turned her legs to water. I’ve done it now, she thought.

  “What are you doing, Fionnula?” asked Granny, her voice shaking. “She’s just a child. What harm is she doing if she wants to pretend her mother and father are still alive?”

  Aunt Fionnula’s eyes bulged with anger. “How can you take her side? She can’t say such vicious things!”

  Granny shook her head sadly. “How was it vicious? Can you not understand why a twelve-year-old who has lost her parents would say something like that? You’re a mother yourself.”

  “I think you’ve made your feelings clear, Fionnula. Let it go now,” said Granda. He stood and put his arm around Maddy’s shoulders as Aunt Fionnula glared at her, her palm to her face. Her free hand shook as she pointed a finger at Maddy, but her voice was icy and steady.

  “Don’t you see how bad she is? She’s violent, and you don’t say a word. There are lines that should not be crossed, and that child has gone too far, too often,” she said. “I know you try your best with her, but you shouldn’t be trying to raise a twelve-year-old at your time of life, especially not a difficult one. You are not doing the best thing for Maddy either—she’s running wild. She’s got the whole village talking about how she made up all that stuff when Stephen went missing, just so she could get attention. It has to stop. She hit me, for goodness sake.”

  Granda looked at Aunt Fionnula, his face unreadable. “She certainly did.”

  Aunt Fionnula took a deep breath. “Face it—you cannot cope with her,” she said to her parents in a softer tone of voice.

  You snake, thought Maddy.

  “It’s best that Maddy come and live with me, where she can have the company of other children and the kind of environment she needs.”

  Granny sighed and stood up. “We’ve had this out before, and I’m not talking about it anymore,” she said. “I know you are grieving too, Fionnula, but you need to take a long, hard look at yourself and ask if you really are the person who should be looking after Maddy. Come and help me get the lunch ready, Roisin,” she said. Roisin threw a guilty, embarrassed look at Maddy, even as she scrambled to get out of the room.

  “Perhaps I didn’t handle things well today,” said Fionnula to Granda, smoothing her shell suit over her thunder thighs. Her face was still red, and her eyes were flinty so Maddy was under no illusions that her aunt was having a change of heart. “But I still think, for Maddy’s sake, we need to make a decision soon,” she went on. “I know you feel you owe it to her mother, but no one can say you haven’t tried. It is time for someone younger to take over. And mark my words,” she hissed as she glared at Maddy, “there will be no lies told or any backchat once I get my hands on you. You will do things my way. A month with me and you will be a different child.”

  A week and I’ll burn the house down, thought Maddy. That hair would flare up a treat.

  Chapter Eight

  Maddy went quickly to her room and shut the door so no one would see the hot tears coursing down her face. Granny knocked on the door to tell her lunch was ready, but Maddy said she didn’t feel well. “Do you want me to bring your lunch into you on a tray, pet?” Granny asked.

  Maddy sighed and put her forehead against the door. “I’ll be OK in a little while. I’ll eat then.”

  She waited for Granny to open the door and argue with her, but instead she whispered. “It’s fine, love. You can have it a bit later.”

  “Let her starve,” she heard Aunt Fionnula saying. “She’s only looking for attention.”

  There was no way she was eating with Aunt Fionnula, much less living with her. I hope she chokes, thought Maddy. She sat on her bed, listening to the clink of cutlery and her aunt’s harsh voice. Aunt Fionnula seemed to be the only one talking. Maddy picked at a loose thread on her duvet and thought about the “environment” her aunt would provide for her: sharing a cold, damp box room with Roisin and being forced to be her aunt’s charity case. There would be no cuddles, no kisses, and no pet dog. Maddy would be forever on the sidelines, taught to know her place.

  After lunch, Aunt Fionnula walked into Maddy’s room without knocking, pushing a reluctant Roisin before her. “We’re off home, but Roisin is going to stay the night,” she trilled. “You girls will be a sharing a room soon enough—you might as well get to know each other better.

  “I’m going to do a little bit of shopping in the village, while the boys play football in the square,” she went on. “If you need anything, Roisin, give me a call on the mobile before I head home. Be a good girl for your grandparents.” She bent to give Roisin a quick peck on the cheek and then straightened up, casting a cold eye around Maddy’s messy room, the boxes of books and toys spilling out from under the bed. “You’ll have to get rid of some of this clutter before you come to us, Maddy. We really don’t
have the room for it. I’m sure you don’t need it all anyway.”

  Maddy said nothing.

  “Well then, girls,” said Aunt Fionnula with a brittle smile, “I’ll see you both tomorrow, bright and early for school.”

  Roisin looked at Maddy, who looked at the wall. Roisin sighed and picked up a book from the window ledge and started to leaf through it. Maddy waited. Eventually a peaceful hush fell over the house. She crept to the door and peeped around it. Both her grandparents were asleep in their chairs in front of the fire. She took her jacket from its hook on the back of her bedroom door and tiptoed past them into the kitchen. Roisin followed her and stared as Maddy flew around the room, grabbing fruit and a packet of biscuits and throwing them into a plastic bag before she started to make some jam sandwiches.

  “What are you doing?”

  Maddy refused to look at her. “None of your business.” She threw the sandwiches into the bag with the rest of the food, zipped up her jacket, and rummaged under the sink for a flashlight. Then she looked at her cousin. “You didn’t tell me earlier—about how you get into a faerie mound?” she asked Roisin.

  “What?”

  Maddy just widened her eyes impatiently and waited.

  Roisin frowned and thought for a second. “It was just one entry, and it was a bit creepy. Only a faerie can open the mound. Anyone else needs a guide.”

  “And how do I get the guide?” said Maddy.

  “You have to call them. If you want to get in, you have to give them something they value,” said Roisin.

  “What?”

  “The blood of an innocent.”

  Maddy stared at her. “You’re joking.”

  Roisin shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “That’s what it said. Why do you want to know this stuff anyway?”

  Maddy sighed and walked over to the cutlery drawer, taking out a sharp paring knife and adding it to the bag. She took George’s leash from its nail by the door, slipped the back-door key from beneath a china shepherdess posing on the kitchen shelf, and let herself out.

  She went behind the coal shed and picked up her backpack, throwing the food in with the poker. Then she walked around to the shed door and pulled the bolts back before ducking inside. Coal dust drifted up her nose and made it itch. She began to rummage around for anything that could intimidate a faerie. She took down an old horseshoe her grandfather had hanging up for luck and slung in the bag and grabbed a handful of iron filings, stuffing them in her jacket pocket and zipping it up.

  She jumped out of her skin when she turned around and nearly fell over Roisin.

  “Will you go away?” she hissed.

  “Tell me what you’re doing,” said her cousin.

  Maddy shoved past her and went to pull a sleepy George out of his kennel, before clipping the leash on to his collar and yanking the stiff gate open.

  “Wait!” said Roisin, running to keep up.

  “Go home!” said Maddy over her shoulder.

  Maddy walked around the house and out into the lane, heading straight toward Blarney Castle. The sun was sinking, lost behind the fingers of black clouds, and the tarmac on the wet road shone like a mirror every time car headlights swept over it. Maddy was cold, and her jeans were already wet. They felt like clammy cardboard tubes on her legs, and they were chafing the skin on her thighs. She was going to look like corned beef if she didn’t dry out soon. George wanted to stop at every streetlight and power-line pole to cock his leg, and Maddy had to keep yanking on the leash. The little terrier huffed in temper and tried to dig his paws in, but she pulled him along anyway. She knew she wasn’t being fair, but she wasn’t in the mood to humor him. George’s stubby legs worked hard to keep up with her, and drops of rain glittered in his whiskers. The rain had forced most of the village indoors. The bonfire for tonight loomed in the village square, too wet to be lit now, Maddy supposed. A little gang of early trick-or-treaters passed her by, heads bent, voices low, the rain beating them around their hoods.

  Maddy swore when she heard Roisin running to catch her.

  “Maddy, would you just stop for a second and tell me what is going on?”

  “What’s the point? I tell lies, remember? How will you know if I’m telling you the truth?”

  “Maddy, you can’t blame Mam—you did lie,” protested Roisin. “You can’t get out of it like you normally do. You can’t be angry at Mam for being upset. Your mam was her sister.”

  Maddy gritted her teeth and kept walking.

  Roisin stopped dead in the lane. “Maddy, please, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I am going to have to call Mam on her mobile. Everyone is going to wonder where we are if I don’t.”

  “Why do you have to be such a pain, Roisin?” said Maddy. “I didn’t ask you to come, and I’m telling you: you’re not going to believe me.”

  “Tell me anyway,” said Roisin.

  “OK, fine.” Maddy walked back and glared at her cousin. “The night I went into the castle grounds, I think I met a very nasty faerie who likes to take children. I think he took Stephen, and I’m going into the faerie mound to get Stephen back. Does that clear things up for you?”

  Roisin stared at her with her mouth open, and then she started to giggle.

  “I said you wouldn’t believe me,” said Maddy as she turned away and started to walk on.

  “Well, you have to try a bit harder than that,” said Roisin, chasing after her again. “Stephen is fine—everyone knows that.”

  “You reckon? Go away, Ro.”

  “Seriously, Maddy, where are you going?”

  “Seriously, Ro, into the castle grounds, where it’s dark and spooky, and I’m not going to turn back because you feel scared and start crying like a baby.”

  Roisin’s eyes started to sparkle. “This is a Halloween trick, isn’t it? Oh, let me come with you, pleeeease?”

  “I tell you what,” said Maddy. “Give me the phone so I know you can’t call your mom, and then you can come with me.”

  “Noooo,” said Roisin. “Why don’t I keep the phone, so you can’t ditch me and go off on your own?”

  “Fine.” Maddy sighed. “Just shut up.”

  It was almost dark, and the parking lot was deserted. Maddy kept to the wall and the shadows where no grown-ups could see them. She hunkered down behind a bush, waiting for the gates to be locked. Roisin crouched next to her and thought for a couple of minutes.

  “How are you going to get in?”

  “There’s a gap in the fence I can squeeze through. I used it last time.”

  “No, I mean the faerie mound—how are you going to get into that?”

  “Blood of an innocent, right?”

  “Yeah?”

  Maddy nodded at George. Even soaking wet and sitting on cold hard ground, the dog had a look of vacant happiness on his face. He put a paw on Maddy’s knee and gave her face a lick.

  “You can’t use George!” screamed Roisin. Maddy shushed her urgently, and Roisin lowered her voice. “You can’t use the dog!” she whispered.

  “Why not? You can’t get more innocent than George.”

  “You’re serious about trying to get into the mound? What makes you think it will work?”

  “It’s Halloween,” said Maddy. “It’s meant to be the time where the human and the faerie worlds open up to each other.”

  “If you really want to try this, why don’t you use your own blood?”

  “Because if I believe everything your mother says about me, it would probably lock me out,” hissed Maddy.

  Roisin bit her lip and looked at her sneakers. They sat in gloomy silence, Maddy shifting her weight from one bum cheek to the other as the rain dripped off her hood.

  Roisin stole a glance at Maddy’s face. “It won’t be so bad, living with us.”

  “Yes, it will. Now, please, shut up.”

  After what seemed like an age, they saw the light on the groundskeeper’s bike as he finished checking for any stragglers. They heard the clink of metal on metal as h
e locked up and the sound of him whistling as he cycled off into the night. Maddy stood up and worked her way along behind the dripping bushes ringing the fence, feeling with her foot for the hole.

  She scrambled through, tugging a reluctant George after her, and walked up the path, not bothering to see if Roisin was keeping up. It was pitch black under the trees, and Maddy jumped every time she heard a strange noise or a rustle in the undergrowth. The trees seemed to be shuddering with moving shapes, and twice she thought she heard giggling. She shuddered but she didn’t dare put the flashlight on until they had crossed the bridge and were far enough away from the car park that any adults would not see the light. The grounds, landscaped to appear eerie during the day, looked terrifying at night.

  At last they came to the faerie mound, and both girls stopped and stared. The only light was from the flashlight, one small drop in an ocean of darkness. In the rest of Blarney it was raining, but over the faerie mound snow was falling. The gently whirling flakes cascaded down and coated the small hill, moving in a different world from the hurrying rain.

  “Now do you believe me?” said Maddy, her voice sounding too loud in the crushing dark. She touched the cross under her T-shirt with the tips of her fingers before dropping the backpack on the ground and taking the knife from one of its front pockets.

  “That can’t be real; it has to be a trick,” said Roisin, her voice trembling with fear.

  “Trust me, it’s real,” said Maddy grimly. She crouched on the ground, the paring knife in one hand. “C’mere, boy,” she whispered, winding the leash around her other hand as she dragged George closer.

  “Don’t!” hissed Roisin. “Let’s go back to Granny and Granda’s and get someone to help. There must be an explanation for all this.”

  “No one is going to help. This is the only way to get Stephen back,” said Maddy as she took the dog’s collar off and held him by the scruff of the neck.