Darkmouth

by Shane Hegarty

  Eventually, Finn sat with his back pressed against the mirror, his fighting suit on his lap, and, with a needle, thread, and some rivets, worked at tightening up the armor.

  Then he walked the Long Hall, where the dead watched from the walls, disapproval burning into him from each set of eyes. It seemed even they were aware of the sullen hush that seeped through the house and poisoned every room.

  38

  On Monday morning, Emmie was waiting at the junction of their streets when Finn left for school. He picked up his pace as he passed silently, fueled by anger, shame, and a surge of adrenaline that put an uncontrollable wobble in his legs.

  On Monday afternoon, she was at the school gates. So he hopped a wall, snagging his trousers on broken glass as he hauled himself over it. She followed him home, from a distance, her unshakeable presence giving him an itch in his shoulders.

  On Tuesday morning, she was at the corner again. “Finn!” Emmie half shouted. He crossed the road, took a turn in the wrong direction, dodged through an alley, across another, and emerged on an unfamiliar route to school. Thirty seconds later, she was trailing him again.

  On Tuesday afternoon, Finn did the same thing, in reverse. So did Emmie.

  On Wednesday, he got a ride from his mother. It was the only way. And in school he sat at the back of the classroom so she couldn’t burn a hole in his head with her stare. Instead, he tried very hard not to stare at the back of her head. He failed, but convinced himself that she didn’t know that.

  On Thursday, Emmie wasn’t there. She wasn’t on the road or at school. Mrs. McDaid called her name a couple of times during roll call, but where she should have been, sitting under an explosion of red hair, there was only an empty chair. Finn looked at the vacant seat and wondered where she could be until his thoughts were interrupted by a wet pea-size ball of paper stinging the side of his head. The Savage twins pulled matching sad faces at him.

  On Friday morning, Emmie was missing again and Finn could feel a surprising sensation creeping up inside him. He almost didn’t recognize it at first. She was gone. She had left Darkmouth, returned to the city, to her old life. And Finn . . . missed her. Just a little bit. But enough that he had to recall his anger from where it had briefly retreated.

  He walked home slowly that afternoon, half wishing to turn around and find her shadowing him from afar. There was no sign.

  He passed the corner, but she wasn’t there. Finn took the short route to her house, then hesitated for a few seconds, caught between approaching the front door and going home. No, he decided, he should just leave Emmie and her father behind as nothing more than a painful lesson in trust. It was time to get on with whatever the rest of his life was going to bring.

  He turned around and headed home.

  “Finn?”

  The fright pretty much sent him leaping into the air.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” said Emmie. She stood on the path to Finn’s house.

  His anger came bubbling back to the surface as he brushed past her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Just leave me alone.”

  “I didn’t tell my dad about the crystal you took.”

  Finn stopped. “So?”

  “I could have told him,” said Emmie. “I was supposed to tell him. But I didn’t.”

  “Great, you’re trying to blackmail me now,” said Finn. “Brilliant way of showing how sorry you are.”

  “I didn’t tell him because I realized I didn’t want to. I was supposed to pass back all the information, and I thought I could do that. But the crystal, that was your secret. And you shared it with me. That’s when I knew I couldn’t do what they wanted. Because you were my friend.”

  “You’re right. I was your friend. Past tense,” said Finn.

  “I’m sorry for everything. I didn’t mean to—”

  “You meant it all. Every bit of it. You used me to get to my dad. It’s the only reason you came to Darkmouth.” Finn started to march away.

  “No, it’s not,” said Emmie.

  “Liar!” said Finn.

  “No, Finn. I mean we weren’t here to watch your father.”

  “More lies,” said Finn, still walking away.

  “We were here to watch you,” Emmie shouted after him.

  Finn stopped again, anger and confusion swirling inside him while he tried to figure this all out. “So, even they don’t think I’ll ever be Complete—”

  “It’s more than that,” said Emmie. “Something else. I don’t know exactly what, and my dad doesn’t tell me much, but I’ve picked up bits and pieces. About the Twelve. They talk about you a lot. They’re worried about you. About some kind of . . .” She hesitated, as if afraid to speak the word. “. . . prophecy.”

  He felt the world tumble, like the day he fell chasing the Minotaur and lay stranded, rain dropping from the flat gray sky far above him.

  They stood on the empty street. Finn thought she looked different and it took a moment to realize why. Her hair was pulled back, revealing her face from ear to ear. Now that he noticed it, she didn’t just look different; she was almost unrecognizable.

  “Don’t believe you,” he said, and left.

  Emmie’s arms were rigid by her sides, her fists clenched. She shouted after him. “It’s true. That’s why they asked me to become your friend.”

  “Still don’t believe you,” he shouted, not breaking stride. But he wasn’t so sure. The Hogboon had tried to give him a message. Emmie and Steve had come here to watch him. He felt like he was being sucked into the center of something.

  Something big.

  He kept walking, but the anger and the confusion were swiftly being overwhelmed by another emotion he was all too familiar with. By the time he reached his house, he felt very scared indeed.

  39

  Finn waited for training again that night, fighting suit on, helmet in his hand, but no father there to punch. Down the Long Hall, the rim of light at the door to the library told him that his father was inside. Finn knew what he had to do to break the silence, knew it was time to offer one secret for another, even if the result might bring things crashing down on his head.

  Before entering the library, Finn stopped at the portrait of Gerald the Disappointed. There was no doubt about it: if there was ever a man who looked as if life had glued a coin to the floor and kicked him in the backside when he tried to pick it up, it was Finn’s great-grandfather.

  What would it be like to be brought up by a man who was so openly unhappy with how things had turned out? What would it be like to try and please a man who looked as if every ounce of pleasure had been squeezed from his life?

  And what would it be like to lose your father, the man whose portrait on the wall was a constant reminder of his absence?

  It would harden a person, Finn guessed. It would turn them into his dad.

  He took a deep breath and entered the library.

  His father was sitting with his back to the door, staring at the computer screen with his shoulders drooping. Finn walked toward him, the silence amplifying every step, but his dad seemed oblivious to his presence, simply rubbing his forehead as if trying to work a thought out from deep within.

  On the computer, photographs scrolled across the screen, including a favorite of Finn’s that showed him when he was four years old sitting with his mam and dad on Darkmouth’s stony beach. He was holding a bucket and spade, for all the use it would be.

  They looked like a normal family, on a normal day out, in a normal town.

  Finn put his hands inside the breast of his fighting suit and, from a pocket under the armor, pulled out the Minotaur’s crystal. He held it close by his side.

  “That was a good day,” his father announced, his back still to Finn. “We took you for a swim, but you wouldn’t wear any floaties. You just wanted to run straight in there and swim. So, I let you have a go. I stood there and watched you splash and kick and do everything to stay afloat. Your mother was shouting a
nd screaming at me to pick you up, but I told her you’d be fine.”

  “Did I swim?”

  “No, I had to rescue you. But that’s not the point. The point is that you tried. You showed courage and a stubbornness that I knew would make you a great Legend Hunter. That I know will make you great.”

  The picture scrolled over to another. It was the portrait of Gerald the Disappointed that hung in the Long Hall. His father turned off the monitor. “But it hasn’t been great so far, let’s be honest. And I have tried. We have tried.”

  Finn frowned, thinking of the Hogboon and the message it had tried to give him. “Dad, what was the Hogboon saying about me? Am I different in some way? I know there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “Finn, you need to get that nonsense out of your head and quick.”

  Finn pushed the crystal back inside his fighting suit as his father spun around on the chair.

  “But Mam admitted it.”

  “Admitted what?” asked his dad.

  “She said I was special,” said Finn.

  “She did?”

  “That you knew I’d be special even before I was born.”

  His father grabbed Finn by the shoulders, took a breath, and gave him a laser-beam stare. “Of course she told you you were special, Finn. Every mammy thinks their child is special. That’s what mammies are supposed to say.”

  The crush Finn felt was the closest he might ever get to knowing what it was like to be desiccated.

  “Am I interrupting a touching moment between father and son?” Mr. Glad stood at the door of the library, his hands thrust in the pockets of his stained coat. Sensing his joke had fallen flat, he laughed awkwardly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to. Anyway, Hugo, it’s time you got back to work. Actually, it’s time you got out of those sweatpants before they need to be cut off you. And open a window in here. I’ve smelled Griffins sweeter than this room.”

  He marched in, heading straight for the device, and started to clear up tools, coffee cups, and odds and ends.

  Finn had turned away to hide the upset tensing his face. His father glanced at Mr. Glad, but didn’t stand up. “It doesn’t feel like a priority right now, Glad.”

  “Look, Hugo,” said Mr. Glad, “so the Twelve sent Coco the Clown or whatever his name is to check up on you and your boy. That’s the Twelve. It’s their way. Those guys wouldn’t order chicken soup before first finding out what color feathers the chicken had.”

  A mildly perplexed look briefly interrupted Hugo’s self-pity. “They looked for reasons to stop me joining the Twelve,” he said. “They have plenty now.”

  Finn sidled away, beginning to head toward the door.

  “Did you ever think you’d see your father give up so easily, young man?” said Mr. Glad as he passed. Finn paused. “He didn’t give up during the Christmas Day invasion all those years ago,” continued Mr. Glad. “He didn’t give up despite that whole business with your grandfather Niall. But now, here he is, giving up on all that. And even giving up on you.”

  Anger flashed in Hugo’s eyes. “Don’t bring Finn into this.”

  “It’s the only way it can be, Hugo.”

  Finn’s father swiveled around to the desk and placed his head between his large hands. “I’ve given a lifetime to Darkmouth,” he said.

  “Then a few more days won’t do any harm,” said Mr. Glad.

  “They’ve already started the process of taking all this away from me,” said Hugo. “That rookie spy they sent will probably convince them he can take over.”

  “Then you need to give them a reason why that shouldn’t happen. Finishing the device will do that.” There was something close to pleading in Mr. Glad’s voice. “I’ve never seen you as the type to give up. And I’m sure your son hasn’t either.”

  Finn stayed where he was, head down, caught between the need for truth, the need to escape, and the need for everything to go back to normal. He remembered what the device offered for his future. “My dad never gives up on anyone,” he said, hardly audible.

  “What’s that, Finn?” asked Mr. Glad.

  “It’s okay, Finn,” said Hugo. “You don’t need to say anything.”

  Finn spoke, louder, and stared at his father. “I said that Dad never gives up.”

  Finn closed his eyes, unable to hold his father’s gaze any longer. He tried to wish away the tightness creeping through his throat, and noticed the musky smell of Mr. Glad’s clothes, heard the creak of a chair.

  He opened his eyes again to see his father walking slowly toward the device, dragging himself to it, and, with labored effort, reaching down to the floor to pick up a hammer. Approaching the contraption, he held the hammer so tightly in his fists Finn could see his knuckles whiten. His father’s breath was quick, deep. His great shoulders rose and fell. He lifted the hammer above his shoulder, as if preparing to strike the machine down.

  Finn held his breath. Mr. Glad’s eyes widened.

  Hugo hesitantly lowered his arm, bringing the hammer’s head into the palm of his free hand. He sighed, and the tension and intent seemed to be released from him. “Get me that blade,” he said.

  Mr. Glad realized he was addressing him. “Ah yes, the blade. Which one?”

  “The one that looks like it’s from a desk fan. It is the desk fan.” Hugo went to work on some wiring within the device.

  Mr. Glad looked at Finn, a smile crossing his face. Finn couldn’t identify what type. Satisfied maybe. Relieved. Triumphant. But, whatever kind, it troubled Finn.

  “This is going to change everything, young man,” Mr. Glad said. “I know you’re not too keen on harming any more animals, but sometimes sacrifices are necessary, right?”

  Finn caught sight of something and flinched, but quickly composed himself. “I’ve got homework to do,” he announced, and left as speedily as he could manage without looking like he was running away. Which he was.

  He could sense Mr. Glad watching him go, felt his pinhole eyes following him all the way to the door. What Finn couldn’t tell was if Glad was following him with curiosity or suspicion. Did he know that, as his hair hung forward, it had revealed a dark bruise on his neck? Its edges were yellow and fading, but pressed into his flesh was the unmistakable imprint of a star.

  Just the kind of bruise someone might have if they had been hit with a star-shaped fishing weight.

  It had been Mr. Glad at the harbor.

  Mr. Glad at the gateway.

  Mr. Glad who was communicating with the Legends.

  40

  “Say that again, just so we can be clear about how wrong you are.”

  Finn’s father had emerged for dinner that evening a little less gloomy than he had been over the past few days. The lighter mood had lasted all of the two minutes it took him to ask Finn if he was okay, and for Finn to reply with a series of tentative questions about Mr. Glad, how long his dad had known him, how close they were, and if he had any suspicions that, you know, maybe he could be, if you want to call him that, a traitor.

  “Go on, Finn. Run it by me again.”

  “Don’t wave the fork at him, Hugo,” said Finn’s mother.

  Finn wrapped his arms tightly across his chest. “I know I rammed something into the neck of whoever attacked me at the harbor. I’m just saying what I saw.”

  “No, you’re saying what you think you saw. Glad has been through enough scrapes to earn a few bruises and scars. When I was your age . . .”

  “Great, here we go again.”

  Finn’s dad glared at him and continued. “When I was your age, Mr. Glad practically lived in this house. He comes from a family of Fixers. Loyal. Always there when we wanted them.”

  “Finn obviously believes he saw something,” said Finn’s mother. “You should have told me about this fight in the first place anyway.”

  “Don’t start, Clara. I’m the one out there with him, training him, trying to get him ready to become a Legend Hunter. It’s hard going, trust me. This sort of stuff is going on in
his head all the time.”

  “I’m right here, you know,” said Finn. “Say it to me directly.”

  “My place on the Council of Twelve is probably gone because of everything that happened at the harbor.”

  “Why do you even want to join them, Dad? I don’t get it. It sounds totally boring, just rules and regulations and sitting at desks all day and—”

  His father cut him off. “There are countless Legend Hunters across the world sitting around doing nothing but polishing their spears. I refuse to be one of those when Darkmouth is finally rid of Legends for good. Besides, despite everything that’s happened in this family, they’re giving me a chance to rescue its reputation. Our reputation. I won’t have you ruin that for me.”

  “Calm down, Hugo,” said Finn’s mother. “Show some sympathy.”

  “I’m trying. Every day I’m trying, but there’s always something else to test me.”

  “Did it ever occur to you, Dad, that this might not be my path?” asked Finn.

  “Your path?” he said, a fleck of meat shooting out of his mouth. “Your path?”

  “I’m trying to tell you something, but you won’t believe me,” said Finn, knife and fork gripped upright. “I’ve been trying to talk to you about lots of things, but you won’t ever listen. About Mr. Glad, and that Hogboon and what he said. And now Emmie has told me they came here to watch me.”

  “When are you going to learn not to believe anything they say to you?” said his father.

  “So, maybe there is something going on. Maybe I’m not even supposed to be a Legend Hunter,” said Finn. “Maybe I am meant to be different.”

  His father threw his cutlery halfway across the table. “You’re different all right. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you hardly touch your meat, Finn. You push it around the plate, trying to hide it, but it doesn’t go near your mouth. He’s a vegetarian, Clara. Where did he pick that up from? Not from my side.”

  “Something is happening, Dad. It doesn’t matter how much you try and distract me from it, I know there’s something you’re not saying.”