The Changeling

by Helen Falconer

  Aoife couldn’t resist kicking Killian again – not so lightly.

  ‘Oi, bog off!’

  ‘Sorry, Carla, bad luck – looks like he’s superglued to the seat. You’ll have to put up with him.’

  ‘Sit down, everyone!’ Sinead’s father was backing in alarming fits and starts across the potholed square. ‘Oh, for . . . Where’s first gear on this crate?’ He stalled and restarted, with a hideous scraping of the gears and a stink of burning clutch. ‘Everyone, sit down!’

  Shay Foley was plugged into his phone, earphones in, eyes closed. He was occupying the aisle seat, and showed no sign of moving over. His knees almost touched the seat in front, and Aoife had to clamber over them, tugging down the short pale green dress. The bus kangarooed forwards, and she nearly fell on top of him. In a quick reaction, without even opening his eyes, he grasped her arm and steadied her.

  She murmured, vaguely mortified, ‘Thanks.’

  He didn’t answer but remained with his head tilted back, listening to his music. A thread of song drifted from his earphones. Little Lion Man . . . Mumford and Sons – cool London folk. She glanced back down towards the front. Carla had turned to see was she all right – anxious but still looking like the cat that’s got the cream. Aoife smiled back; a reassuring wave of her hand. Then sat down and pressed her forehead to the glass.

  The bus lurched off down the Clonbarra road, past the garage, then the turning to Aoife’s own boreen. Fields of yellow irises juddered by. She tried to retreat to that place in her head where she created her songs, but couldn’t stop thinking about her first day in junior infants. A little boy with white-blond curls had been chasing a plump girl with a worm, and Aoife had taken it off him and stuffed it down his shorts, sending Killian in pant-wetting hysterics to the teacher. That’s when her and Carla’s friendship had started, and it had just gone on and on, no reason to change it. She swallowed and the tight gold chain pressed against her throat – she pushed a finger under it, running it back and forth, looking towards the hazy mountains. A faint pale line wriggled across their slopes – a distant dusty track. She thought of the fairy road, and herself and Carla in their wings, when the games they had played were so simple.

  A light touch on her arm.

  She moved her elbow away.

  Another touch – this time, definitely deliberate. Slowly Aoife turned her head. Shay was looking straight at her. ‘Don’t worry about your friend,’ he said, in the soft rain-washed accent of the mountains. ‘Killian’s only a gobshite but she’s well able for him, more than you think.’

  Aoife stared. He smiled suddenly. The deep curve in his upper lip flattened out when he smiled.

  ‘You see, I do talk,’ he said. ‘If there’s something needs saying.’

  It was Aoife who couldn’t speak. She just kept on staring at Shay. How had she never looked at him before? Properly looked at him, that is? Apparently unperturbed by her scrutiny, he continued to gaze back at her, still with that same smile. His jaw was slanted, and his cheekbones strong and slightly flushed under his sun-browned skin. His eyes were dark green mottled with chestnut – the colour of woodland growth; his eyelashes were as black as his thick close-cropped hair. He had a single silver earring, worn near the top of his ear. He was wearing the Mayo jersey, and a well-worn leather belt slotted through his faded jeans.

  The bus lurched wildly, and Aoife managed to drag her eyes away from him. Sinead’s father had taken a sudden right turn, swinging the bus up a steep, narrow road towards the mountains.

  ‘Dad, where are you going?’

  ‘Settle down, Sinead. There’s a short cut up here to the back road – we’ll get there faster this way.’ The bus climbed steeply between dry-stone walls, brambles squealing painfully along the paintwork.

  Shay said under his breath, ‘We won’t be getting anywhere this way.’

  Aoife turned to him again, frowning. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘This here is an old bog road – it’ll take us straight west into the mountains.’

  ‘Crap. Go up front and tell him, before he goes any further.’

  He shrugged. ‘Sure, there’s no talking to the likes of Tom Ferguson when he gets a notion in his head. Whatever wild thing led him astray, he’ll have to come to his senses by himself.’ He stuck his earphones back in and closed his eyes.

  Aoife stared out of the window, annoyed and not knowing what to do. How could Shay Foley so casually predict disaster and then just wash his hands of the whole problem? She was right about him, he was anti-social. He had no reason to think Thomas Ferguson wouldn’t listen – it was just a lame excuse not to get involved.

  Sinead was on her feet, strawberry-blonde ponytail trembling with indignation. ‘Dad, are you sure about this?’

  Thomas Ferguson’s bald head flushed pink. ‘Sinead, sit down. I know exactly what I’m doing and where I’m going.’

  Aoife glanced quickly at Shay. But his eyes remained shut, long thick lashes resting on his cheeks. His silver earring glittered slightly in the sun. His mouth was deeply curved, at rest. His lashes flickered. She pulled her gaze away.

  The bus kept on relentlessly climbing. Before them, the dusty road unwound through endless heather. The mountains rolled away into the west. No other cars, no farms, just this sweeping lilac-orange land.

  A united groan went up as all the phones went out of range.

  ‘Dad. Are you—?’

  ‘Sinead, relax!’

  This must be the pale track she had seen from the road, crossing the mountains. Even if Thomas Ferguson wasn’t so set on going in the wrong direction, there was no place to turn – it was far too narrow, and the soft margins of the bog on either side wouldn’t take the weight of the bus. In the distance, a small green hill rose from the bog, capped with a white circle of hawthorn.

  A little girl was running down the hill, in the direction of the bus.

  Aoife blinked, looked again, saw nothing for a while. Then did – the same small figure, now struggling across the soft terrain of the bog between the hill and the road, standing, falling, crawling. Impossible at this distance to be sure it was a girl . . . or a child at all. It could be a lamb. It must be a lamb. Or some other animal. How could a little girl – or boy – be out here in the middle of nowhere, all on their own? There was no house anywhere, not even a car parked by the road.

  It was a lamb.

  It was a child, she was sure of it.

  The bus passed a low outcrop of grey rock, and the tiny stumbling figure was blanked from view. When Aoife could see back past the rock again, there was only empty bog.

  She sat very still for a moment, thinking about it. Then stood up and climbed out over Shay’s long legs. He pulled out his earphones, eyebrows raised. She said, ‘Sorry – saw something . . .’ and strode quickly down the aisle. ‘Could you stop the bus for just a moment?’

  ‘Why? Are you going to be sick?’

  ‘No, I saw a little girl out there on the bog, all by herself.’

  ‘Out here?’ Sinead’s dad started to slow down. ‘Where?’

  ‘Back there by the hill.’

  Killian’s voice said, ‘Hey, Aoife saw a leprechaun.’

  ‘Dad! We’re going to be late!’

  Thomas Ferguson stopped looking over his shoulder and speeded up again. ‘No, you must have seen a lamb.’

  ‘Please, just for a minute, while I check—’

  ‘Aoife, if you’re not going to be sick, sit down.’

  Shay was on his feet. He called across the seats in his soft westerly accent, without even seeming to raise his voice, ‘You might want to stop the bus, Thomas. If there’s a little girl lost out here on the bog, we wouldn’t want to be the ones to have driven off on her.’

  The bus slowed again, tentatively.

  Lois shouted, ‘Aoife’s only trying to ruin the day for everyone because Killian’s going out with Carla and Aoife fancies him!’

  Speeding up—

  Aoife screamed, ‘I’m going t
o be sick!’

  Thomas Ferguson slammed on the brakes.

  CHAPTER TWO

  As soon as she’d jumped off the bus, she sprinted back up the road.

  ‘Aoife, get back here!’

  She increased her speed. All around, acres of bog stretched to the horizon, broken only by the small green hill, crisscrossed with sheep paths and crowned with white hawthorn. Nothing moving.

  She had seen a child.

  She had.

  The bus did a clumsy three-point turn on a stretch of grass and came rumbling up the road behind her.

  Aoife cut left across the bog, round the back of the rocky outcrop. It was painfully slow going across the soft ground, her feet sinking in at every step, but after a few minutes of struggle she hit on a trail of mossy stones laid side by side in a regular pattern, as if they had once formed an ancient pathway. A thought came to her: Down. Yet the stone track brought her straight to the foot of the hill, and the only way forward was up. Maybe from the top she could get a better view. She mounted the steep slope, turning at the top to scan the landscape. Slopes of rusty and purple heather, dotted with fluttering white scraps of bog cotton, stretched away to the mountains and a distant glint of sea. A few sheep with their lambs. Nowhere to hide in this wild empty land.

  The bus drew up at the side of the road and two figures got off: one in a bright orange dress and the other in the green and red of a Mayo jersey.

  Aoife hurried on across the summit towards the circle of hawthorns. Maybe the little girl had taken fright and run back the way she had come, and had hidden herself among these trees.

  The densely woven hawthorns were wound together as tight as a roll of barbed wire. There seemed no easy way into the thicket. She tried to pull the branches aside, but the thorns hurt her hands; she peered in between them, and saw only whiteness. This close to her face, the scent of the hawthorn blossom was overpowering, so strong it made her feel strange and floaty. A hand touched her arm, and she spun.

  ‘Jesus, Carla, you nearly gave me a heart attack!’

  ‘Sorry.’ Carla was breathless and pink with the effort of struggling across the soft ground and up the steep slope. ‘I’m so sorry about that stupid crap Lois said about Killian.’

  ‘Not your fault. Here, help me find a way in—’

  ‘Stop pulling at those thorns, you’ll hurt yourself! Sinead’s dad sent me to tell you to come back.’

  ‘Help me—’

  ‘I have been helping. I was looking all around me all the way across the bog and up the hill. Shay Foley’s looking as well, on the other side of the road.’

  ‘Really?’ She would never think badly of him again, ever, even if he never said another word to her or anyone in all his life.

  ‘Aoife, stop doing that . . . Stop it, you’re bleeding!’

  ‘It’s all right, I’ve found a gap – come on.’ She pushed her way through into the circle. Inside, the canopy of flowers above and the carpet of blossom made a pale, sunlit dome filled with sweetness. At the centre of the clearing lay a round pool, so flat and black it was like an oil spill on snow.

  Carla came complaining bitterly in her wake. ‘Ouch, yuck. Aoife, let’s go, there’s nobody here and I’m scratched to pieces, and this dress is ruined and my dress that you’re wearing is ruined . . .’

  Aoife walked across the soft carpet and looked into the pool. Blackness. Nothingness. She crouched down on the bank, and felt around in the water. It was freezing and deep, deeper than her arm could reach. She lay down on her front. Carla said in a panicky voice, standing over her, ‘Oh my God, have you seen something?’

  ‘No, but what if she’s in here? I can’t reach the bottom.’

  ‘What? You can’t see anything in there but you think she’s drowned? Aoife, this is crazy. Even if you did see her, she can’t have had time to—’

  Aoife sat up, kicked off her shoes and slid into the pool. The coldness of it nearly stopped her heart.

  ‘Aoife, what the hell? Get out of there!’

  The water was up to her chest. She took a deep breath and crouched, letting the iciness close over her head, feeling blindly around the soft bottom of the pool, her knees sinking into the mud, fearing yet longing to put her hands on a small cold body buried in the mud. Sinking down, down . . . Her lungs were straining, and her head was ringing. Down. Down. She was numbingly cold; her veins had filled with the waters of the pool. Down, down . . . Under the ground . . . Hands seized her, dragging her to her feet; her head surfaced, lungs expanded; she choked down air.

  Carla was sobbing, shoving her along in front of her onto the bank. ‘Get out of the water, you stupid fool . . . Get out!’

  Aoife’s head was spinning, light and dizzy; vision black; her tongue felt thick. ‘Let go of me—’

  ‘Get out!’

  ‘But the child—’

  Carla screamed at the top of her voice: ‘There is no child!’

  The release was immediate, as if Carla’s despairing scream were a full-strength hammer blow that had shifted a heavy blockage in her head, allowing the darkness to drain, letting in the light.

  Carla was right.

  There was no child.

  Thomas Ferguson took one look at the two of them – soaking, muddy and shivering – and announced that he was driving them back to Kilduff before taking everyone else to the seven o’clock showing instead.

  Killian refused to let Carla sit beside him because he didn’t want to get wet; he went to sit beside Shay. Shay moved over into the window seat to make room for the builder’s son, plugged his earphones in and closed his eyes. He would probably never speak to Aoife again, not after he had broken his long silence to stand up for her only to be made a fool of.

  Carla sat beside Aoife, staring gloomily out of the window, eyes full of tears.

  In the seat across the aisle, Sinead was being loudly comforted by Lois. ‘Don’t let her spoil your day.’

  ‘There won’t be time to get a pizza after!’

  ‘There will, and if not we’ll go next week, just you and me.’

  Behind, Killian was on great form, leaning across the aisle to crack pointed jokes about leprechauns with his cousin, Darragh Clarke. ‘Two leprechauns walked into a bar. Ouch! It was an iron bar.’

  As they neared Kilduff, Aoife touched Carla’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Carla said stiffly, without turning her head, ‘It’s all right.’

  The bus drew up outside the church.

  Aoife paused beside Sinead. ‘I’m really, really sorry . . .’ Sinead ignored her. ‘OK, well, I hope the film is OK.’ Silence, and a prolonged sigh from Lois. She followed Carla off the bus.

  As she was picking up her bike, she heard a man’s harsh voice shouting: ‘Shay! Get over here!’ across the square. She turned, and Shay Foley had dismounted from the bus – he caught her eye, hesitated, then walked rapidly away towards a beaten-up, three-door red Ford that had just pulled out of the pub car park. The driver who had summoned him was a big, black-haired man in his mid-twenties – his brother, presumably. Shay got in, and the Ford drove away. So he really had decided not to talk to her any more.

  Carla was standing beside her gazing forlornly after the departing bus. She said, without looking directly at Aoife, ‘That was pretty mean of Sinead’s dad to make us come home.’

  ‘You can’t really blame him, though – look at the state of us. We’re not just wet, we’re filthy wet. I’m really sorry.’

  Carla shrugged. ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘Will I come home with you and explain to your mam?’

  ‘You’re all right, I’ll just say what we said to Sinead’s dad – that you fell in a bog hole by accident and I helped you out.’

  ‘I don’t mind telling her the whole thing—’

  ‘No.’ Carla paused, and sighed. ‘I’m not being funny, but you know, it was a bit weird and she might not understand.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Are you feeling all right now?’

&n
bsp; ‘I guess. Here’s that bar for Zoe.’ She pulled it from her bag and held it out.

  Carla took it but then just stood there holding her bike, clearly working herself up to something else. ‘Look—’

  ‘Carla, don’t worry, I know I didn’t see a child. Or a leprechaun. I swear on my life I haven’t gone mental on you—’

  ‘No, no, I don’t mean about that, I mean about Killian. Do you really fancy him? I don’t mind – just tell me.’

  Aoife said, taken aback, ‘No, really, I don’t.’

  ‘Because actually he said to me on the bus that he thinks you do.’

  ‘What . . .?’ But she stopped herself in time. Telling the truth would just be the poisonous icing on Carla’s already very bad day. ‘No, he’s grand and everything, but seriously, no.’

  Carla shrugged, not looking any the happier. ‘Anyway, I don’t know why I’m even asking, ’cos it doesn’t matter now. He couldn’t stop laughing at me when I got back to the bus all covered in mud and my hair in a big frizz.’

  ‘Oh, Carla.’ Aoife wanted to say something like If he really likes you, something like that won’t matter to him, but that was the sort of thing only mothers said, and it was never true. ‘I wish . . . Look, I’m sure he’ll text you.’

  Carla said stiffly, ‘He won’t. Don’t worry about it.’

  Aoife hugged her – awkwardly, because they were both holding their bikes.

  As she rode out of the square, her phone beeped. Carla.

  i love u more than any boy

  Warmth flooded Aoife’s heart.

  me too

  She set the stopwatch and rode home as fast as she could, as if through sheer physical effort she could leave her own bad day behind. Past the unfinished estate on the edge of the village, where her dad, a carpenter, had been working before the recession. Past Kilduff garage and then slightly downhill, the breeze drying the last of the dampness from her short green dress. There was a tractor ahead of her, and she overtook it. After the tractor was a car, and she had a sudden urge to overtake that too – and did. The elderly man at the wheel gave her a startled glance as she powered by. This was strange – and a bit frightening. How fast was she going? The old man must have been driving very slowly . . . The turning to her house was coming up, and she only just made it, skittering left in a wide spray of gravel into the boreen. This was terrifying – the pedals were spinning so fast her feet could barely keep up. If she didn’t slow down, she’d destroy her wheels on the potholes . . .