‘What’s that sound?’ Eamon O’Riley asked Oona.
‘I hear nothing,’ said Morris, rejoining them. ‘You must be just –’
‘Quiet,’ said Oona. ‘I hear it too.’
She asked the Loam Stone for sight and saw this: the Faceless holding a half-closed claw, at his feet the remaining Briar-Witches, their bloated claws beating the surface of the Burren at the same time as the long nails clattered and scratched on stone as though trying to discover a rhythm. What else? Oona looked closer: from the place the Witches were making noise they were making magic: briars were surfacing, then snaking, splitting. They were coming for the Cause.
‘Briar-Witches,’ said Oona.
‘No bother,’ said Morris. ‘They can’t burrow here, not through this stone. We’ll not let them get close even.’
‘They don’t need to burrow,’ said Oona for reply. ‘They’re not coming themselves. Not yet.’
Eamon understood: ‘Fire burns any briar better than anything. Used have the things in our scatter-garden back home. Me and Bridget used to get rid of them with a bit of singe-moss and bracken. Two stones smashed together to make a wee spark and away you go! We could try that?’
‘Bit short on bracken and moss here,’ said Morris.
‘Lay a trail of gunpowder?’ said Eamon. Morris looked to Oona.
‘Didn’t I always say an O’Riley would come in useful,’ he said.
‘Just do it,’ said Oona.
‘What about the fire?’ asked Morris. ‘We’ve no time for smashing stones together.’
‘Leave that to me,’ said Oona.
So Morris issued the order. Rifles and pistols were opened and gunpowder emptied – boys of the Cause back-walking and letting it leave the same way Merrigutt had laid her scarlet powder over the surface of Ballyboglin, summoning her solitary soldier. Or in the Hollow Mountain or at home in the Kavanagh cottage, same powder used to summon flame. And it was these bright memories, Oona knew, that would give her enough to dream fire when the time came –
‘Look!’ came the cry of the one of the Cause.
A time already with her –
Oona saw the slither of briars stretching wide over stone. They were crimson, as though they carried blood inside – bright veins on dark, covering the narrow splits on the surface of the Burren. And when their thorns burst through they were black, sharpening in seconds, swelling and –
‘Oona!’ called Morris. ‘Ready when you, sister dearest, but I’d say you better do it now!’
Oona shut her eyes: saw Merrigutt flinging scarlet powder at the feet of Invaders –
Morris: ‘Oona, now!’
Opened her eyes and sliced her arm through the air as she’d done on the rooftop in Loftborough –
The line of gunpowder ignited. Flames blue-green sprang towards the sky – high as Oona desired and sizzling with the arrival of briars. Oona’s head felt lighter, limbs near weightless: she felt flooded with so much power.
‘Get your heads down!’ called Morris.
So much smoke – Oona and Morris and Eamon and the other boys had to hide low.
‘Can’t see,’ Oona heard Morris say. ‘Stopped the briars but can’t see a bloody thing, Oona!’ But Oona knew it wouldn’t last. Gunpowder would be soon spent. And then?
‘It didn’t work!’ cried one of the Cause.
‘Shut up!’ Morris told him. ‘Worked well enough! Was never going to be that easy!’
Sooner than Oona’d thought: smoke departed, and a blackened and smouldering tangle lay on the Burren. Burning briars, but more would follow, wouldn’t stop.
‘That was good,’ said Eamon, ‘but what now?’
Oona didn’t answer. The Stone was growing colder in her hands, felt so fragile, weakened. Morris allowed barely a moment before he demanded the same: ‘What now? What else can you do with that Stone, Oona?’
But another voice was addressing Oona, one that had been too quiet for too long –
‘You have nothing, Oona Kavanagh. No power. Nothing but these simple, childlike, colourless dreams. You should have learned by now – nightmares are the most potent thing. You have not mastered your own, but I have so many. I have a multitude awaiting you, in my City across the sea.’
Oona had an image, a sight seen and then slipping away quick: moonlight laid on dark water, a path of rippling silver that stretched towards the edge of everything …
‘You have so much you still need to know, Oona Kavanagh. So many Echoes you need to hear.’
‘Oona!’ said Morris, and he suddenly had hands on her shoulders, was almost shaking her.
‘What’s wrong with you? You can’t stay daydreaming! What do we now? Tell!’
The sun had almost sunk, would soon leave: magical protection gone, the world around the Burren was lapsing into the same dark that covered the rest of the North.
Oona turned to her brother and said, ‘Which way is the quickest to the sea?’
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‘They’re coming!’
A call from one of the Cause but may as well have been all –
Oona saw every boy stand, saw the line of darkness in the distance no longer distant but drawing closer: soldiers, Muddgloggs, Coach-A-Bower and –
‘Briar-Witches!’
Scratch and scuttle of claw on stone was the nearest thing, the Witches crossing the Burren so swift –
‘Which way is it to the sea?’ Oona asked her brother again.
‘Can’t leave,’ said Morris. ‘Not abandoning the Cause, not these lads.’
‘We have to,’ said Oona, harsh whisper. ‘Listen: you can shoot as many Witches and Invaders as you like but as long as that King lives then nothing will stop this. Nothing’s gonna stop the change in this Isle.’ She looked to her brother’s crumbling hand. ‘It’ll all be dust and Black before long, you and all your boys of the Cause too, and that’s the truth.’
A flinch from Morris. The rifle slipped in his hand.
‘It’s the Echoes,’ Oona told him. ‘They’re poisoning all of you. I don’t know why they start on a person or why you and not me, but we need to find out. And only that King has answers.’
Sound of the Briar-Witch claw closer, almost with them –
‘Morris,’ said Eamon, coming near. ‘What do we do for the best?’ The twins looked at one another, hearts fairly hammering.
‘Whatever we do,’ said Morris, eyes on his own hand, ‘we need to do it all together. We took an oath – Stick together till the end, or else die of the shame of deserting.’
‘Morris,’ said Oona, Loam Stone burning, a hungering thing in her hand. ‘We have to –’
‘Go,’ said Eamon. ‘It’s decided: you too run and we’ll stay and fight and distract them.’
‘No,’ said Morris. ‘I’m not dodging the fight now that it’s here.’
‘And you’re not,’ said Eamon. ‘I believe Oona – the real fight isn’t here, it’s the one you’ll be going to. This King is the one to be stopped. The Isle needs saving or else what’ll we have left?’
A moment more, and then first gunfire from the Cause – the decision was taken from them.
‘Go on, you stubborn fool!’ shouted Eamon, pushing Morris on his way and calling to the Cause. ‘Protect Morris and Oona! Don’t let a single damnable thing touch them!’
And the Cause were all kneeling, firing, gun smoke adding to smoke from the earlier fire as Briar-Witches leapt, fell, faltering –
And finally –
‘East is the way to the sea,’ said Morris.
‘Then let’s go,’ said Oona.
They ran right, staying behind the line formed by the Cause but they were hardly far before –
‘Look out!’
A glimpse of Briar-Witch – dark and ragged and filthy and bounding and about to descend on them …
Stopped by a gunshot.
Oona turned for the source and saw Eamon, rifle releasing a ribbon of smoke.
‘Don’t stand gawking at me!’
he called to the twins, and on they ran.
But too many Witches were attacking and Morris and Oona fought as they went –
She: Stone swung through the air and still thinking fire, flame exploding upwards from the Burren to scorch Briar-Witches, keeping them back.
He: quick rifle-shots, rarely missing.
‘Still a quicker eye for all this than you,’ said Oona.
‘Aye,’ said Morris. ‘Keep dreaming.’
A seething skein of briars was covering every scrap of the Burren’s stone. Morris took the blunt knife from his belt and had to slice rough lumps out of anything that reached for them. He took care of the close, Oona the ahead – but how far to edge of the Burren, to the sea? She couldn’t see any end. But what she did see stopped her – the line of dark had severed, Invaders splitting so one group could move north, towards the sea, and the other still heading for the remaining members of the Cause.
‘How far?’ asked Oona.
‘Maybe a mile or two,’ said Morris. ‘Why?’ Then he looked.
‘They’re gonna get there before us,’ said Oona. ‘There’s too many and we –’
Against her soles Oona felt a tremble. Then a shudder, like stone itself was ready to tear itself free. She knew without needing to imagine: Muddgloggs.
‘Can you hear that?’ said Morris. ‘Or feel it?’
Oona could hear, feel: a deepening hush, a silence, the Coach-A-Bower nearing too.
When Morris spoke she could hardly hear him say, ‘We’re not enough. They’ve all this magic gathered and we’ve nothing. We’re from this Isle and they’re not and we’re the ones with nothing!’
It set Oona wondering – flame was one thing but wasn’t good enough. But she’d seen things, met more of the Divided Isle than her brother. And hadn’t she brought Merrigutt and the jackdaws to the Hollow Mountain with a desperate wish, so maybe –
‘Oona,’ said Morris, taking her by the arm. ‘We need to decide: go back or keep going on our own. So which now?’
Oona looked to the Loam Stone.
‘We keep going on,’ she said. ‘But if I can manage it, we’ll not be alone.’
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Oona shut her eyes and clutched the Loam Stone so close to her chest she might’ve been wishing to press it into her heart.
The tremble and shudder was stronger –
Hush deepening, as though she was slipping underwater –
She felt Morris close, his anguished breath against her face. He was waiting, same as Oona: she was waiting to see faces, detail, to remember the way things were, to pluck enough images from memory to summon things … but like trying to sketch on a blank page with a numb and unwilling hand, it was almost too much. Fear made itself a distraction as she stood and willed herself –
‘Oona!’ cried Morris, and he grabbed her arm to drag her away –
She opened her eyes, but didn’t move –
A Muddglogg above, towering monstrous, a thing Oona couldn’t hope to control. Its body was hedgerow and dispelled forest, cottage and farmhouse and field, shards of gravestone studding its scalp like a grim crown. Oona imagined generations buried safe being ripped from the earth – so many settled bones now disturbed, secreted somewhere within its massive body. And then came a memory for Oona, enough of a kindling for her imagination, the Giants and their condemnation: ‘To bid the land to rise, for generations to be exhumed and defiled when they wish to lie dead – such a crime!’
Morris shouted, ‘Run!’
But still Oona wouldn’t move herself.
‘Oona, for the Sorrowful Lady’s sake!’ said Morris, shaking her.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Wait … wait … I almost have it …’
The Muddglogg raised one dark foot above them –
And Oona dreamed Giants, the Loam Stone flaring into its pure white self –
They heard: ‘There! The girl who has mastered the Nightmare Stone – protect her! Stop that unholy creature!’
A trio of Giants came striding then sprinting across the Burren and throwing themselves on the Muddglogg. Even straining to their tallest height, the Giants only had half a hope of being almost half as high as the Muddglogg, but their weight was enough to make the creature stagger, fall back.
‘Now let’s go,’ said Oona.
‘Oona,’ said Morris, breathless but not from running, ‘are you gonna tell me what in the Sorrowful Lady’s name is happening?’
‘Something,’ said Oona, and smiled.
‘Well if you can do that,’ said Morris, ‘could you not think a way of us to beat those Invaders to the sea?’
But in the same moment two darknesses dropped – dusk, and the Coach-A-Bower sweeping to a stop in front of them.
Oona and Morris stopped where they stood.
The heard the queasy clash of metal against metal, saw the stallions with their off-milky eyes watching. But it was too dark to see the Coachmen.
‘Stay behind me,’ said Oona, remembering Loftborough, remembering Bridget.
Morris cocked his rifle.
‘Won’t do a bit of good,’ Oona told him. ‘No bullet or blade will stop these things.’
‘How do you –?’ began Morris,
‘I know,’ said Oona. ‘I know too well.’
‘Well, we can’t just stand here and –’
A crack like bone between teeth and a whip lashed out of the dark and closed around Morris’s throat. He fell, was dragged, feet kicking but not relinquishing his grandfather’s rifle – Oona took the blade from his hand and slammed it down on the whip. It didn’t snap. She tried again – same nothing. Gave it a third time go and this time saw in her mind the Mother of the Briar-Witches in her nest, heard again the scream as Oona had separated the creature from its claw … and for a moment in her mind there was no then or now, only the act: the blade went down and the whip was severed, the rest of it retreating into the gloom and Morris left released.
‘Don’t move,’ said Oona, pulling Morris to his feet. ‘They could be standing around us.’ They stood back to back, Oona still with the blade in her hand, Morris still with his rifle, the pair of them with eyes sweeping the sudden night.
‘We’re near blind in this dark,’ said Morris. ‘Could do with some more that fire right now, what you think, sister dearest?’
But Oona’s hearing had snagged on one word: blind.
She had barely begun to think it before a fresh sound tore open the hush. A single howl sounded, then more – a myriad as so many hurtling bodies coloured grey-white-silver-mud arrived, Whereabouts Wolves storming from nowhere as they had down into the pass of the Melancholy Mountains. And just like Oona had first seen them, they were leaping high – over the carriages of the Coach-A-Bower or, if she wished it, colliding with and toppling them.
Morris’s mouth hung open.
Oona did her best imitation of the same jig Mrs McSooth had done in Loftborough – clapped her hands three times quick and stamped the right foot twice – and one Wolf stopped beside her. She knew it was her very own Whereabouts, same one that had carried her across Black, and without a pause Oona took handfuls of its hair and pulled herself up to straddle its spine.
She looked at Morris.
‘Are you serious?’ he asked.
‘Just get on,’ Oona told him. ‘She’ll not bite.’
Morris pulled himself up, awkward as anything, to sit behind his sister.
The coat of the Whereabouts Wolf went as stiff as wire – such a yearning for somewhere to go, and Oona had only to lean close and whisper into one of its hooded ears: ‘Take us to the edge of everything.’
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Oona with her arms around the Whereabouts Wolf’s neck and Morris with his arms around her waist, and they were a tireless thing bounding across Black, towards more awaiting dark – the line of Invaders massing, looking as much like one animal as the twins and their Wolf.
Beside them ran the other Whereabouts, as countless as they’d been in the Black and all hurling themsel
ves forward with such speed it made Oona giddy to witness. She held on tighter, and looked ahead –
More Muddgloggs were stationed behind the Invaders, and in front was the squirm of dark scraps, more Briar-Witches making their magic. Oona felt terrified, but only for a moment: she had her Stone, after all, and her ideas, and herself.
‘Faster,’ she told their Wolf.
‘Nearly there now,’ said Morris, readying his rifle.
And sure enough there was sound – the sea not far, Oona imagining it shrugging restless against the shore.
The first gunshot that came was from the Invaders – Morris returned fire –
And Oona felt as though she only blinked and then suddenly could see the eyes of the soldiers, their rifle-barrels aiming and uniforms still adhering to their surroundings so perfectly as Morris told her, ‘Head down!’ His hands left her waist and Oona ducked so he could fire over her head and keep firing.
She whispered to the Whereabouts, ‘Keep going. Keep going as long as you can!’
But they were deep into the thicket of briars and Oona felt them reach for her, the Wolf slowing as it was ensnared. The rest of the Whereabouts pack powered on and threw themselves on the Invaders, knocking some from their horses but most only falling, broken on the Burren.
A sudden tightening around Oona’s arm, the one that held the Stone – a briar that had her, then pulled her bodily from the Wolf, any cry for help lost to the air and Morris being carried on, still shooting at the Invaders.
Oona was slammed against stone and instantly encircled, and no matter how much she tried with the blade to beat the briars back they had the better of her – around ankles and chest and neck and she thought of the Briar-Witch nest and herself and the boy of the Big House almost strangled …
‘I spy her over there, Sally! Go and help her, quick! She’s trapped in those fouls things!’
Had Oona even thought it? Dreamed it fully? Whether she had or not she had help in the next moment – a stone girl liberated from her fountain sprang into the scene and started to rip and tear at the briars that held Oona, swearing and cursing and shouting as she tore one squirming limb after another, ‘Leave her be, you filthy weeds! Let her go! I’ll show you some strength!’
The Black North Page 26
