The Dark Divide

by Jennifer Fallon

  Darragh shook his head. ‘I believe my brother had instructions never to say a word to the police without a lawyer present. I do not share his fear. You strike me as an honourable man.’

  Pete smiled at that. ‘Honourable?’

  Darragh pointed to the recording equipment. ‘You are recording this, yes? And you have rules you must follow. Why should I fear you?’

  ‘So for the benefit of the recording — you’re formally declining legal representation, yes? Even though you’re under eighteen?’

  ‘I am, and I’m not under eighteen. My brother and I will be nineteen on October fifth. Your October fifth. The date is quite different in my realm.’

  Damn, Pete thought. Just when he was starting to sound sane.

  ‘My file lists Ren Kavanaugh’s birth date as December tenth, nineteen-eighty-three.’

  ‘Then your file is wrong, sir.’

  ‘What else am I wrong about?’ Pete asked, fascinated by this young man’s calm assurance. He wasn’t lying, Pete could tell that just by watching him, but his story was insane. He was like those alien abductees who could pass a lie detector test, convinced they’d been kidnapped and anally probed by little green men. Whatever stories this kid was peddling, they might not be the truth, but he believed them. It was going to be next to impossible to get the truth from Darragh unless someone could rattle his cage enough to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that his version of events was bullshit.

  Darragh smiled at Pete’s question. ‘What else are you wrong about, sir? By Danú, I don’t even know where to begin.’

  ‘How about you start with where Sorcha is?’

  ‘She returned through the rift.’

  That’s a lie, Pete knew. The first actual lie he’d caught Darragh in.

  ‘According to Patrick Boyle, she was in the trunk of the Bentley with you.’

  Darragh’s eyes clouded for a moment, which intrigued Pete. For the first time, he appeared to have shaken the young man’s equanimity. ‘Patrick Boyle? Is that how you found me? Patrick betrayed us?’

  ‘You said us,’ Pete answered. ‘So Sorcha was with you?’

  He wasn’t listening. Darragh muttered something under his breath, shaking his head, and then looked at Pete, his eyes filled with regret and self-recrimination. ‘You would think, given how heinously my brother and I were betrayed in our own realm, I would have listened to Sorcha when she warned me Amergin would betray me in this realm, too.’

  Pete stared at Darragh for a moment, resisting the temptation to simply respond with ‘huh?’ Instead, he thought over what the boy had said, trying to find the truth in it. Darragh wasn’t lying, he was living a fantasy, but there would be a kernel of truth in it somewhere that Pete had to find if he was ever going to locate Hayley Boyle’s body.

  ‘Who is Amergin?’ The only Amergin Pete knew of was the mythical ancient poet that every kid in Ireland had probably heard of. He was disappointed. Darragh’s story was going to be far too easy to unravel if that was the best he could come up with.

  ‘The Vate of All Eire in my realm,’ Darragh told him. ‘At least he was. He has been replaced now by Colmán.’ Darragh rolled his eyes, adding, ‘A less-talented bard it would be hard to find in any reality, I have to say.’

  ‘Amergin … in your realm, was also a bard?’ Pete said, deciding to play along for the time being.

  The lad didn’t miss a beat. He nodded in agreement. ‘It is a popular name among parents who hope their sons will achieve greatness.’

  ‘And how did this Amergin betray you?’

  ‘He was the one who threw Rónán into this realm.’

  Neat, Pete thought. He’s really thought about this. ‘And Rónán is Ren’s true name, you say?’

  He nodded. ‘I’m not sure where the Ren comes from. Perhaps he recalls what our mother called him. She was Gaulish and called him Renan, I believe, more often than not.’

  ‘What did she call you?’

  Darragh closed his eyes for a moment and then looked at Pete with a rather forlorn expression. ‘Do you know, I cannot recall. That is so sad. Every year, a little more of Sybille’s memory slips away. Soon I won’t remember her at all.’

  His regret was so heartfelt and genuine, Pete had to remind himself this kid was talking about a world that existed only in his head, and that he had, more than likely, been responsible for killing two people — one of them his own brother. It also occurred to Pete that Darragh had rather skilfully taken charge of the whole discussion. They were talking about his alternate reality as if it really existed.

  Time to take back the control. ‘So how is it you blame Patrick Boyle for Amergin’s betrayal?’

  ‘I don’t blame Amergin,’ Darragh said. ‘Patrick Boyle is Amergin’s eileféin. He was probably always destined to betray us, no matter the reality he occupies, which I should have accepted instead of hoping Amergin’s betrayal was just an aberration brought about by his connection to the Tuatha Dé Danann through his Leanan Sídhe wife and the corrupting influence of Marcroy Tarth.’

  Pete sat back in his seat, shaking his head. ‘The Tuatha Dé Danann? Are you fucking kidding me? Your alternate reality is populated by fairies?’

  Darragh seemed puzzled by his reaction. ‘I have angered you, Pete. Why? I am trying to explain what happened to Rónán and Hayley. Surely her family wants to know what has happened to her? It would ease their minds greatly, I would think, to know that she is well and undoubtedly able to see again, by now.’ He stared at Pete with a look of such ingenuous expectation, it was hard to believe this was all in his head — a grand delusion he’d created to save himself from … what? A lifetime of abuse? A guilty conscience he couldn’t live with? Pete was inclined to believe the latter.

  ‘Yeah, “she’s safe with the faeries’ll do it”,’ Pete said, rising to his feet as he glanced at his watch. ‘Interview suspended at twelve forty-three a.m.’

  Darragh looked up at him in surprise? ‘Are we done?’

  ‘We’re done,’ Pete told him. ‘At least you are.’

  ‘Did you want me to explain to Hayley’s family what happened to her in person?’

  ‘I want you locked up and medicated and under constant psychiatric care,’ Pete told him, realising that Darragh was so convinced of his fantasy, there was no helping him. And Pete knew he was out of his depth here. He had a degree in criminal psychology, but he wasn’t a psychiatrist. This kid needed help. Serious help. It was probably schizophrenia or something like it that caused him to hallucinate like this, but whatever ailed this boy, there was nothing Pete could do, here and now, to fix him.

  ‘I am not insane, Pete,’ Darragh said calmly as Pete headed for the door. ‘You’re just not equipped to accept the truth.’

  Pete stopped with his hand on the doorknob. ‘Okay then, wise guy, explain this to me … suppose I buy your theory. Suppose I suspend all rational thought for a moment and accept that your brother stepped through a rift into another world with Hayley, and Trása and whomever else you care to name. Suppose I accept that you guys can open rifts between worlds at will … then why are you still here? If your story is true, why are you sitting here, under arrest and facing the next twenty years in gaol, if fairies can open a rift and come to get you, anytime they want?’

  Somewhat to Pete’s surprise, Darragh didn’t even hesitate before replying with a worried expression, ‘I cannot answer that question, Detective Pete, and I fear it means something terrible has befallen my brother and the people I count as allies, because you are right. If they were in a position to save me from this realm, I would be home by now.’

  CHAPTER 29

  Sorcha took her time making her way back to Jack’s place. She could have taken a cab or some other form of public transport. She had money. She could have been home in a matter of minutes.

  But she was feeling out of sorts. It wasn’t just the necessary but unpleasant need to kill Warren that unsettled her. She didn’t feel right. There was something wrong with her. She fe
lt slower, felt pain in places she’d never experienced it before.

  Sorcha put it down to lack of exercise. She’d barely walked a mile since she’d come to this reality, and she wondered if that was causing the problem. She just needed to walk out the stiffness in her joints and she would be fine.

  It took her all night and a good portion of the next day to get back to the tree-lined, suburban street where Jack O’Righin lived. She slept along the way, finding a leafy garden with a secluded nook that offered shelter from the elements. She didn’t mind sleeping in the open. She preferred it. By the time Sorcha rose in the morning, just as the sun was dawning over the city, she was rested but still not feeling better. If anything, her night in the open had made her feel even more stiff and uncomfortable.

  She put aside her discomfort and headed toward Blackrock, following the DART line when she could. Other times she had to backtrack as it became obvious the roads were meant for cars but not people. It took her almost half a day. Her stomach rumbling in complaint, she arrived back at Jack’s place just in time to see the ERU storming Kiva Kavanaugh’s estate.

  Amergin! she thought, reasoning the dead Vate’s eileféin had betrayed them, just as she knew he would. You treacherous bastard.

  Keeping to the shadows of the neighbouring high walls surrounding the estates, Sorcha made her way into Jack’s place unseen. As soon as she was inside she called out for Darragh to warn him of the attack next door.

  ‘Lord Darragh!’

  They had to get out of here. Now. When the Gardaí didn’t find the boy they thought was Ren Kavanaugh at his mother’s house, the next place they would logically look — assuming it was Patrick Boyle who betrayed them — would be this place.

  ‘Curse you, boy! Where are you? We have to leave!’

  Sorcha ran through the house, calling Darragh’s name, but the silence echoed only her footsteps and her fruitless calls.

  Darragh wasn’t here.

  ‘Danú, save me from foolish children,’ she muttered as she stopped in the kitchen to catch her breath.

  She guessed immediately where Darragh had gone. Next door. To his brother’s house. He would not have been able to resist the temptation to see how Rónán had lived. He had a head full of his brother’s memories and no way of sorting them into anything coherent. She understood his need, and cursed him for it at the same time.

  ‘You foolish, foolish boy!’ she shouted at the empty house, knowing he couldn’t hear her, but feeling a little better for it. She cursed herself roundly for leaving him alone. She should have anticipated this.

  Sorcha had to know what was going on. She was tempted to take a peek herself by climbing the ivy-covered wall between the estates to watch the attack, but she didn’t want to risk detection. She couldn’t save Darragh if she was also arrested. There was the problem of all those armed men, too. Sorcha could take three or four of them in a fight, armed with a knife or a sword, but she had no defence against bullets, and the men storming Kiva Kavanaugh’s house had all been carrying short, ugly guns.

  Or maybe she did? Perhaps Jack had guns in the house?

  Sorcha looked around, not even sure where to begin looking for a weapons cache.

  Then it occurred to her that in this world where everything was reported on television, there might be something about the raid happening next door on one of the news channels. There was a clutch of paparazzi camped outside the house next door, day and night. Surely one of them was standing in front of the house, talking earnestly into a microphone, one finger to his ear — she had no idea why reporters seemed to do that — breathlessly chronicling the events at the Kavanaugh house as they unfolded.

  Darragh was a bright boy and superbly trained by the best of the best. Ciarán had seen to that. Even injured as he was, it would be hard to take him by surprise. He could well have gone to ground at the first sign of the attack, and would elude capture completely, even if he hadn’t been able to get away. He could be concealed somewhere in the garden, either here or the garden next door, simply waiting for a chance to slip away …

  There was one sure way to find out. She headed into the living room, sat down on the edge of Jack’s clever reclining armchair, picked up the remote and turned on the TV.

  What she saw puzzled her at first. She thought perhaps she was watching a movie. On Friday night, after Patrick had been to visit, Jack sat down to watch TV. The movie Independence Day had been showing. Sorcha was stunned, not sure what shocked her most — that anybody would go to such pains to pretend they’d won a battle that never happened in the first place, or that this reality devoted so much time and effort perfecting whatever it took to make such absurdities seem real.

  Sorcha flicked through the channels with the remote control that Jack had shown her how to use, unable to find any channel not showing the same scenes — planes flying into impossibly tall buildings and after a time, the buildings crashing to the ground in an unimaginable swirl of smoke and dust.

  ‘By Danú,’ she muttered, staring at the screen in shock and disbelief. ‘I think this is actually happening.’

  She couldn’t imagine how such a monstrous thing could be real. But then, until a few days ago, she couldn’t imagine a lot of things she’d witnessed in this world. The barbarity of the destruction defined this realm for her. That such violence could rest in the hearts of the same people who could construct something so tall and elegant and amazing was inconceivable. She didn’t understand half the things the voices on the TV were saying as they described the destruction and what might have precipitated it, but she gathered there was a god involved. Or the worship of one. Had such a thing happened in her realm, she might have looked upon this devastation and considered it the work of a jealous god, determined to bring down men who had dared challenge him with their creations.

  But this wasn’t the work of a jealous god. This was humans deliberately hurting other humans and that made her want to weep for this realm and all who inhabited it.

  Sorcha lost track of time as she watched the events at the World Trade Center unfold. She had trouble grasping the scale of the damage. Nothing could have prepared her for such a thing. She didn’t know what to do; didn’t know if this was a common occurrence in this realm or something so catastrophic and horrendous that nobody in this realm knew how to deal with it, either.

  For a time, Sorcha even forgot about Darragh.

  It wasn’t until there was a knock at the front door that she was jerked out of her stunned stupor.

  Sorcha had no intention of answering the door. She had no idea who might be seeking entry into Jack’s house and no plans to engage with them, whoever they were. But the unwanted visitor must have heard the TV. After a few moments of knocking, a face peered in at the living room window.

  It was a woman. An older woman, her grey-streaked hair pulled back into a loose bun. She caught sight of Sorcha and waved.

  At least she wasn’t Gardaí.

  Sorcha wasn’t sure she could ignore the knocking without raising suspicion now she’d been seen.

  She cursed under her breath and headed for the hall. Hopefully she could divert the visitor and be rid of her without having to answer too many questions.

  The woman was waiting patiently on the porch when Sorcha opened the door. She smiled and eyed Sorcha up and down for a moment before asking, ‘Are you a friend of Jack’s?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sorcha said. ‘I’m his cousin.’

  ‘I’m Carmel. His cleaning lady.’

  Sorcha knew about Carmel. Jack had warned them as he left that they needed to be gone before she got here next Friday to clean the house.

  ‘What did you say your name was, dear?’

  ‘It’s Sorcha,’ she said, frowning. ‘You’re not due until next Friday.’

  ‘I know,’ the woman said. ‘But I was just coming out of the Frascati Mall when I heard the news on the radio. I called in to see if Jack had left for New York already. Wasn’t expecting anybody to be home, but then I heard the TV
and thought I’d better check.’

  ‘Jack left a couple of days ago,’ Sorcha informed Carmel as the woman pushed past Sorcha to let herself in. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To put the kettle on, dear,’ the cleaning lady informed her as she headed for the kitchen. ‘God knows I could do with a cuppa right now. You look like you could do with one too.’

  Sorcha stared after the woman in shock. Who in Danu’s name does this woman think she is?

  And is she right to be concerned about Jack?

  Sorcha knew he was in New York, but the size and location of the city was unknown to her — other than it being far away — as was the likelihood that he might be anywhere in the vicinity of the World Trade Center.

  ‘How do you take it?’ Carmel called out from the kitchen as Sorcha closed the front door, wondering if she couldn’t get rid of Carmel whether she should kill her instead.

  ‘Black!’ Sorcha called back, looking around the hall for a weapon.

  It was then that she caught sight of herself in the large hall mirror. Suddenly, the reason for her aches and pains, the reason for her feeling so out of sorts became apparent.

  Staring back at her was an old woman. Dressed in the ill-fitting floral dress she’d stolen from the clothesline next door to Warren’s house, and the ratty, too-big cardigan she wore over it, she looked like a little old lady, ready to keel over in a strong breeze.

  Her reflection seemed frail. Gone were her lustrous dark locks — her hair had turned almost white. Crow’s feet creased the corners of her eyes. She glanced down at her hands and noticed for the first time that her skin had begun to crinkle like old parchment. Liver spots speckled her forearms. She reached up and touched her face, appalled by the dried-out papery texture of her skin.

  She knew what was happening. Sorcha was eighty-five years old, but her youth had been preserved by the time she had spent in the magical lands of Tír Na nÓg. Since emerging from the Faerie kingdom, she’d aged, but normally, and only as much as a younger woman might expect to age.