The Unicorn Hunter

by Che Golden

  Granda hadn’t been too impressed last night when he realized a Tuatha de Dannan had made a house call. He had come in from work and immediately sniffed the air, which did have a tang of ozone to it, like the aftereffects of a lightning strike. He lost it completely when Maddy told him it had been Meabh.

  ‘There’s a reason why she rules alone!’ he had yelled, banging the table with the flat of his hand. ‘She’s had two husbands and both of them have died on the battlefield! Rumour has it she helped along the blades that did the deed. Do you know how hard it is to kill a Tuatha de Dannan, never mind a monarch? But Meabh seems to have managed to do it twice. Out of all of them, she’s the most treacherous, the most bloodthirsty …’

  ‘What on earth are you shouting about?’ asked Granny, as she bustled in from the kitchen, looking cross.

  Granda had stared at her for a moment with his mouth open, probably trying to think up a good lie in a nanosecond.

  ‘It’s OK, Granny, we’re not shouting at all,’ said Maddy in a soothing voice.

  ‘Yes, you were. I just heard you,’ said Granny, looking confused.

  ‘No, you didn’t hear anything, anything at all,’ Maddy had said, still in a low, singsong tone. ‘You’re not going to hear anything either, are you? Me and Granda are just having a nice, relaxed conversation.’

  Granny had relaxed, her face went slack and her eyes glazed over. ‘No, you’re right, love. I didn’t hear anything. I’ll just get dinner ready.’

  Granda had peered suspiciously after her before looking over at Maddy. ‘Glamoured?’ he asked.

  ‘To the eyeballs,’ said Maddy. ‘Meabh did it when she was here and it seems to be taking a bit of time to wear off. She believes anything you say at the moment, which could be handy.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asked Granda.

  ‘Well, it’s a shame it’s not parents’ evening.’

  ‘Don’t be a smart mouth,’ he had growled. ‘You’re playing a dangerous game, Maddy. Clever as it was, the Tuatha will find a way around that little trick you played on them at the Blarney Castle and then they’ll come looking for you again. When they catch up with you they won’t be happy, and what are we going to do to stop them taking their anger out on you? The Tuatha and the rest of the faeries are not something out of a Walt Disney film, singing silly songs all day while making daisy chains. They like the fear and pain and death of others, and you are just drawing them on to you.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right, blame me!’ yelled Maddy. ‘How is this my fault? What, because I did the right thing and went off to Tír na nÓg after Stephen when he was kidnapped last year? Because I’m not saying sorry for that!’

  ‘Nobody is asking you to …’ said Granda.

  ‘Oh no, nobody is asking me to,’ said Maddy. ‘But you were all thinking it when that unicorn turned up and then all the courts came trooping in. “If it wasn’t for Maddy, we’d be tucked up safe in our beds.” What all of you Sighted should be thinking about is how to keep us all safe from them instead of scurrying around wearing ugly iron jewellery and hoping that they don’t touch any of you when another kid goes missing.’

  Granda had looked at her for a long moment, an angry pulse beating in his jaw. ‘So I scurry, do I?’ he had asked in a low, dangerously quiet voice.

  Nervous, Maddy had crossed her arms over her chest. ‘I didn’t say you personally.’

  ‘You didn’t have to,’ said Granda. ‘I told you the reasons why no one ever goes after the children who disappear into the mound, and the adults too. They’re gone, and drawing the wrath of the Tuatha down on the Unsighted in Blarney, like your granny, would be a terrible thing to do.’

  ‘Only they’re not gone, are they?’ said Maddy. ‘I proved that when I got Stephen back.’

  Granda snorted with contempt. ‘You got Stephen back because they let him go, remember? It was a trap all along, Maddy, and it nearly closed shut on you for good.’

  The scar on Maddy’s shoulder burned as she remembered the fear and the smell of her own blood in her nostrils. She heard Liadan’s voice in her head, soft and evil as a snake’s hiss. Look into my eyes and I can give you your life back.

  Maddy had given herself a shake. ‘I still proved my point,’ she said. ‘We can get people back.’

  ‘No, you didn’t!’ yelled Granda. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? You got lucky. And so now what are you saying – that because you got Stephen out, you’re going to find whoever hurt the unicorn?’

  ‘I never said that,’ said Maddy. ‘Going after Stephen was the right thing to do, the thing that all you adults should have done. This unicorn stuff has got nothing to do with me—’

  ‘Then what are we arguing about?!’ yelled Granda in exasperation.

  ‘We’re arguing about the fact that I GET BLAMED FOR EVERYTHING!’ Maddy yelled back. ‘It is NOT my fault someone hurt a unicorn and it’s NOT my fault that Meabh decided to turn up on our front doorstep, so why am I being yelled at like it is?!’

  ‘Stop being such a baby! I TOLD you not to go after Stephen; I made myself very clear on why it was a bad idea,’ said Granda. ‘I told you not to draw attention to us when the courts were meeting. You ignored me both times and now I find Meabh has been in my house. You should have known better than to let her stop for a minute under this roof, or to get into any kind of conversation with her.’

  ‘What was I supposed to do?!’ said Maddy. ‘Granny let her in – she gave her food and drink. Doesn’t that give her guest rights? I couldn’t have thrown her out!’

  ‘But you could have called me,’ said Granda. ‘You could have called me and got me to come home and I could have dealt with her. Instead you sat down and had a conversation with her. God only knows what she thinks you’ve promised.’

  Maddy had flushed with guilt. She hadn’t told Granda about Meabh’s demand of allegiance in return for protection. ‘I’m not thick …’

  ‘Maybe not, but you do a good impression of it!’ barked Granda.

  They had stopped yelling for a moment and glared at each other, both panting with rage. Then Granda had taken a deep breath and tried very hard to speak in a calm voice.

  ‘This is the way it’s going to be,’ he said. ‘You have ignored everything I ever said to you about dealing with faeries. And whether it’s down to you or not, the fact is that there have never been so many faeries around Blarney, certainly not in my lifetime. And Tuatha walking among us, threatening war, prophesying another famine …’ He shook his head. ‘This is a bad business and they seem to want you in the middle of it. I’m calling your Aunt Fionnula in the morning and you are going to stay with her in Cork city …’ Maddy began to interrupt but Granda had held up his hand, his eyes flashing with anger. ‘You’ll be safe in the city, surrounded by iron. This crisis will pass and the Tuatha will be drawn back beneath their hollow hills. When everything is back to normal, you can come home.’

  ‘You know Aunt Fionnula hates me,’ said Maddy.

  ‘This isn’t a punishment, Maddy. She’s the only one in the family who lives in the city,’ said Granda. ‘You might actually get to know each other better.’

  ‘You can’t—’ protested Maddy.

  ‘There’s a lot of things I can do, Maddy,’ said Granda, hitting the table so hard that Maddy had jumped in fright. ‘The only person around here who tells me I’m weak is you. But by God, you’re going to learn! I admit it, Granny and I have spoiled you, we’ve been too soft. We didn’t want to go too hard on you after you lost your parents. But now it’s time to buck your ideas up. You will go and stay with Fionnula, whether you like it or not. You will be polite and you will make the effort to get along with her. And if doing so chokes you, then remember you brought it on yourself because you refused to listen to someone older and wiser! When all this dies down, you can come back. And maybe by then you’ll have learned a bit more respect for me.’

  Maddy had glared back at him, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. ‘Don’t do
this to me,’ she whispered, her voice cracking.

  ‘It’s for your own good,’ said Granda. ‘Cry all you like, love, I’m still sending you to the city. I’m not having you sneak off to the mound behind my back. You might not find your way home this time.’

  ‘What if they don’t give up?’

  ‘They will. Faeries are easily distracted. The unicorn will recover, this crisis will pass, our world will return to normal and the Tuatha will go back to fighting among themselves.’

  ‘They think I’m the Hound,’ whispered Maddy.

  ‘You are NOT the Hound,’ said Granda fiercely. ‘You don’t want that, Maddy, believe me.’ He looked toward the kitchen, where Granny was singing cheerfully. He and Maddy had been yelling at each other for ages and normally she would have stormed into the room by now, all five feet nothing of her, to spread a bit of shock and awe and make them SHUT UP AND GIVE HER HEAD PEACE! But thanks to the glamour, she was in her own little world.

  ‘You’re right,’ Granda had grunted. ‘Her being glamoured does have its advantages.’ And he had sat down to the read the newspaper, leaving Maddy standing numb and hollow, her fists clenching and unclenching by her sides.

  Maddy jerked awake in Granny’s chair. The hollow feeling was back in her stomach, jostling for room with the nausea. Being sent away was what Maddy had always secretly dreaded. She knew her grandparents were old and it was hard work looking after a child. They had probably thought they had done raising their family and could enjoy themselves a bit, before her parents’ car had spun off an icy road in Donegal and left her orphaned. Granda had said it was only for a little while, but what if they decided it was easier to leave her at Fionnula’s? She hated her aunt and she hated Danny and Roisin’s three older brothers. Life there would be unbearable.

  She got up and stretched in an effort to keep awake. The room was cold and she thought longingly of her warm, soft bed, but she walked to the window and peeked around the edge of the curtain at the silvering sky. A few small birds had woken early and sang sweet, bubbling songs that were full of summer. Crows huffed in sleepy, messy balls – it was too early for them to stir themselves and drown out the dawn chorus with their grating calls. Maddy waited until she saw the first yellow rays of the sun stretch chilled fingers across the village square and then crept quietly toward the kitchen.

  The linoleum on the floor was slick and cold even through her thick socks. She stuffed her feet into the trainers she had carelessly tossed beside the back door, working them from side to side to force them in without undoing the laces. She covered the bottom bolt on the back door with her free hand as she slid it open to disguise the sound of iron grinding on iron. She carried a kitchen chair over so she could reach the top bolt and hushed that with one hand as well. Next she felt under the china shepherdess on the kitchen shelf to find the backdoor key. She slid it gently into the gleaming brass lock and turned it slowly, steadying her wrist with her other hand – each noise the tumblers made as they turned over in slow motion cracked in the dark. A sheen of sweat coated her upper lip as the door swung free of its frame and she escaped into the cold morning air.

  She tiptoed across the gravel in the garden, cringing at each crunch under her feet, convinced that at any second the back door would be flung open and a furious Granda would spot her sneaking out on her own. Or even worse, an irate Granny – the glamour had worn off by bedtime and she was back on form. She crept over to the dog’s kennel and called softly to George. The elderly terrier wasn’t impressed at being woken up and she practically had to drag him out, smelling to high heaven of dog, rumpled and warm where he had been lying in his blanket. Granda’s hounds, Pedlar and Bewley, snored on, oblivious to the world outside their kennels. She snapped a red lead on to the collar around George’s neck and opened the garden gate.

  She picked George up and held him in her arms until she had jogged quietly around the corner, past the huge B&B that sat next to her grandparents’ house and out into the square. George shivered and looked up at her grumpily as she set off across the grass, before heaving a huge sigh and trotting after her dutifully. The grass was bleached with dew and her footprints left emerald wounds across its surface. Wisps of early-morning mist clung to the ground and drifted about like the last stragglers from a party. It looked very Celtic and romantic and Maddy was sure it was the sort of scene that would have tourists reaching for their cameras, but it reminded her of faeries and made her nervous.

  She looked at the grass and flicked glances out of the corners of her eyes to see if she could catch any sneaky movements. Her hand went to her pocket and with the tip of one finger she eased the Velcro apart as quietly as she could and closed her fingers around the dull, rough iron knife. It was light and all faeries should be tucked up beneath the mound by now – but the faeries in Blarney were not behaving as they should.

  A crow swooped overhead and cawed, making her jump. They were close to the wall on the opposite side of the square from her grandparents’ house now, and just as Maddy put her hand on the piled stones to climb over, George peeled his lips back from his teeth in a rumbling growl, the hair on his back and neck standing stiff with alarm.

  There was a slight sound from the other side of the wall, just a few inches from where her hand rested. It sounded like the dull clink of glass and Maddy froze, her mouth drying with fear. George crept forward on his belly, his growl getting louder. There was a funny smell in the air and Maddy sniffed. It smelt like … oh, yuck, pee and sweat and dirty clothes.

  A bearded head with a shock of dirty yellow hair popped over the wall. ‘BANG, BANG!’ it shouted. Maddy squealed in fright and stumbled backwards, at the same time as George launched himself at the scruffy, dirty figure that was clutching the brown beer bottles it had stolen from the rubbish left out by the pub.

  ‘BAD BOY, GEORGE!’ Maddy yelled as she dived for the little black and white terrier as he tried to climb the wall, his claws scrabbling furiously at the grey stone. The figure squealed and shrank away from the bristling terrier as Maddy wrapped her arms around his squirming body, the claws on his front paws raising ugly red marks on her hands as he struggled to get down.

  Maddy grinned and shook her head when she saw who it was. ‘Bang, bang,’ said the little man again. ‘You’re dead.’

  Bang Bang was notorious around the village. He wore the same clothes winter and summer – greasy black pants, shiny at the knees with age, filthy trainers, a huge grey overcoat belted with a piece of rope and a scarf knotted up to his chin. He stank, because it seemed he never took anything off to wash it or himself. He lived in a cottage outside the village and shuffled around all day, picking up bits of rubbish and eating the food that the villagers gave him. At least, that’s what Maddy assumed – she had never seen him grocery shopping. Everyone called him Bang Bang, because that was how he greeted people. He thought he was a cowboy, among other things.

  Bang Bang stuck his tongue out at George, whose sharp barks were beginning to hurt Maddy’s ears. ‘Nasty doggie,’ said Bang Bang.

  ‘Sorry about him, Bang Bang, he’s being a bit daft today,’ said Maddy, clamping her hand around George’s muzzle.

  ‘I’ve got a right to be here, you know,’ said Bang Bang, glaring at her. ‘I’m doing the queen’s business, clearing up all this mess.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Maddy. ‘It’s all right, Bang Bang. You gave me a bit of fright is all. I didn’t know you were there.’

  Bang Bang looked at her suspiciously and then his eyes cleared a little. He shuffled a bit closer, bottles clanking, and his particular body odour wafted over Maddy in a big, curling wave thick enough to surf.

  ‘I got lots of things today,’ he said, rattling the bottles in his arms and looking at them fondly. ‘I can share some, if you want.’

  Maddy swallowed and breathed through her mouth as she took a step backwards, George’s growls muffled by her hand. ‘No, you’re all right, I don’t want to take your stuff off you,’ she said, smiling a
pologetically. ‘I need to get back now anyway and eat my breakfast. I’ve got school today.’

  ‘More for me then so,’ said Bang Bang, jiggling his treasures. He turned away, blowing a raspberry at an outraged George before he walked off.

  Maddy put the terrier on the wet grass and he looked up at her, tongue lolling from his mouth in a wide doggy smile.

  ‘Happy again, are you?’ asked Maddy. ‘What on earth is wrong with you, you eejit of a dog?’ George thumped his tail in response. Maddy sighed. ‘We’d better get home. You’ve probably woken half the square up.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘I could have heard that dog barking in Dublin!’ yelled Granny as Maddy opened the front door. Maddy groaned as she saw both her grandparents were up and Granda was giving her the hairy eyeball, that stomach-clenching look that said, I’ll deal with you later.

  ‘It wasn’t really his fault. Bang Bang was in the square and you know the way he always sets the dogs off,’ said Maddy.

  ‘I’m not blaming George, and do not you be blaming Bang Bang,’ said Granny, as she put cereal and a bowl on the table for Maddy. Granda got up to open the back door and whistled. George shot through it and out to his kennel – he knew better than to stick around when Maddy was getting a tongue-lashing.

  ‘You shouldn’t have been out on your own this early in the morning on a school day in the first place,’ scolded Granny. ‘Instead of walking that fool of a dog, you should have been getting ready. Now you’re going to have to rush.’

  Maddy poured milk over her cornflakes and began to spoon them into her mouth. ‘Yeah, but why is it that every dog in the village runs at him barking whenever they see him? It’s horrible.’

  ‘Poor unfortunate,’ sighed Granny as she settled into the chair opposite Maddy and began buttering some toast. ‘He was a lovely lad when he was younger – bright and cheerful and always a smile on him. But he turned funny around the age of twelve and he’s never been right since. Broke his poor mother’s heart, so it did.’