The Wren Hunt

by Mary Watson

  THE

  WREN HUNT

  MARY WATSON

  For Cathal

  Contents

  ONE: With honey

  TWO: Going to bury you

  THREE: And then they ate her

  FOUR: Ritual at dawn

  FIVE: The worst that could happen

  SIX: I just know

  SEVEN: So much fun

  EIGHT: A warning

  NINE: Frog in a pot

  TEN: What are you hiding?

  ELEVEN: Romeo and Juliet

  TWELVE: Handle Carefully

  THIRTEEN: Watching you

  FOURTEEN: For you

  FIFTEEN: Everything that is wrong with us

  SIXTEEN: Not a virgin sacrifice

  SEVENTEEN: But false

  EIGHTEEN: Call them by name

  NINETEEN: Trees are just not sexy

  TWENTY: It's you

  TWENTY-ONE: Keeper of the forest

  TWENTY-TWO: One of us

  TWENTY-THREE: Looking for a girl

  TWENTY-FOUR: Won't even see it coming

  TWENTY-FIVE: So close to the finish

  TWENTY-SIX: I like peanut butter

  TWENTY-SEVEN: Pinned to that tree

  TWENTY-EIGHT: There's a good girl

  TWENTY-NINE: Girl of leaf and petal

  THIRTY: I've got you

  THIRTY-ONE: The end of the world

  THIRTY-TWO: You're awake

  Acknowledgements

  The wran, the wran, the king of all birds,

  On St Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze.

  Her clothes were all torn, her shoes all worn,

  We chased her all night, right through until dawn.

  Dreoilín, Dreoilín, where is your nest?

  It’s in the bush you all know best.

  Between the holly and the ivy tree,

  Where all the boys do follow me.

  We followed the wran three miles from home,

  Through hedges and ditches and piles of stone.

  We caught her at last and we broke her knee,

  And hung her up in a hawthorn tree.

  For we are the boys that came your way,

  To bury the wran on Stephen’s Day.

  So up with the kettle and down with the pan,

  Give us a penny to bury the wran.

  Traditional, as sung in Kilshamble

  ONE

  With honey

  You catch more flies with honey.

  Maeve’s words chased through my head as I walked towards the village, her flowery bag slung over my shoulder. Good girl gone looking for trouble.

  It was quiet in the main street. It always was the day after Christmas. In other towns the wren hunt was a happy occasion with dancing and music. Wrenboys in costumes with loud banging drums. Delighted crowds looking on. But things were a little more bloody in Kilshamble. That’s how it goes in a village built around an open-air slaughterhouse.

  The Spar was shut, the handwritten sign at the Gargoyle turned to ‘closed’. The twinkling lights outside the pub only emphasised the quiet: no laughter, no music spilled from inside. I paused, scanning the village green. They liked to hide around there. They’d fold out of the shadows, from the church’s stone façade, from the thick hedge.

  I passed the butcher’s, the hotel, until I came to the ghost estate on the outskirts: semi-detached houses that had been hastily assembled in the boom years and now stood empty, running to ruin. No one wanted to move out here. Not if they didn’t have to.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. The boys usually came looking for me, not the other way round. But earlier that afternoon, Maeve had found me in the kitchen, where I’d been staring at burned toast.

  ‘You catch more flies with honey,’ she’d said, handing me the flowery bag, the one she used at the Spar for bread, cheese and a naggin of Powers. She stepped closer, conspiratorially.

  In the bag was a bottle of whiskey and a loaf of Maeve’s apple bread.

  ‘I think you should talk to them,’ Maeve had said. Backlit by the window, her fuzzy hair was framed by the dark clouds and their silver linings. ‘Reason with them. They’re older now. The game has run its course.’

  ‘Smith said to stay home.’

  ‘Smith also says that facing up to problems,’ Maeve looked at the burned toast in my hand, ‘is better than hiding from them.’

  Hiding seemed pretty appealing to me. But if I didn’t go out today, they’d wait. They’d come to the cottage tonight, throw stones at my window, signalling the beginning of the hunt. And the anticipation of when they would finish, maybe on my way home from the shop tomorrow or out at the weekend, was worse.

  She frowned, and standing there in her dress with its crazy flowers Maeve looked strangely dangerous.

  ‘I’ll go.’ Before Smith woke from his nap.

  ‘This ends today,’ Maeve had said. She spoke so fiercely it seemed like it was possible. That I would give them gifts and it would stop.

  Taking my face in both hands, Maeve kissed my forehead. I had to dip to let her. Her roots were showing grey again.

  ‘This ends today,’ she repeated. But it lacked the fervour of the first time.

  Dropping the toast in the slop bucket, I searched the junk drawer for the letter opener I’d stashed there. Then Maeve hustled me out, jacket in hand.

  She sent me into the dark day to catch some flies.

  And there I was, alone in the ghost estate, feeling the creeping cold. I ran my eyes over the houses, wishing I wasn’t the stand-in bird in this warped version of the hunt. It struck me as odd that I’d never seen a real wren hunt, except on TV, and there the masked wrenboys parading the streets with the plastic bird made it look like such a merry, rousing thing. Not like this, this secret hunt that none of the villagers seemed to notice, this chase that was so dark and unhappy. On TV, the masks and music were mysterious and thrilling, but here they felt sinister.

  ‘David.’ I cupped my hands around my mouth. My voice echoed through the untended square. The houses stared back with empty eyes.

  No trace of the boys. Just an old Coke can in the middle of the road.

  It was always the thrill of the chase for them. Those final exhilarating minutes when they closed the distance between us. It didn’t happen often, but there’d been years when I won. When I got away, gasping for breath as I ran through the cottage gate while David watched from the trees.

  But most of the time, they caught me. Tracked me through the village, the forest, even down by the lake. And they’d make me sit with them while they drank beer and decided on their trophy.

  A dull, echoing scrabble that might have been boots against loose stone came from the other side of the rubble heap. My immediate reaction, deeply ingrained, was to run. I held my body rigid and refused to turn away.

  ‘David.’ My voice was loud and angry.

  The sound of high-pitched male laughter echoed through the empty space. I moved towards the running footsteps. By the time I climbed the rubble heap, they were gone.

  Not for the first time, I cursed my name.

  Wren.

  Might as well stick a sign on my back saying, ‘Please hassle me on Stephen’s Day.’ It was the only thing my mother had given me before she ran off with a man from God knows where when I was a few days old. Fallen in with a bad crowd, her judgement had been clouded by an addiction to heroin. She’d taken money and jewellery and left me behind.

  I jumped down from the rubble and kicked the Coke can, watching it rattle away. Walking on, I heard deliberate noises from just beyond: scuffling, some rustling. But when I turned and called out, no one was there. Purple clouds hung low, making the near darkness tighter.

  Talk to them, Maeve had said. When I left the cotta
ge, flowery bag in hand, I was sure I would find the boys, hand over whiskey and cake, and reason with them. But that was before the darkness started settling in. That was before they started playing hide-and-seek.

  A distant noise broke the silence. It could have been an echo of laughter or a cry from somewhere in the woods. A fox, I hoped.

  The faint smell of cigarette smoke wafted over, and then it was gone.

  In the village, they said that the woods weren’t friendly after sundown. They said that bad things lurked in the forest, hidden behind the dank, fallen boughs. The good people of Kilshamble liked nothing more than blood and gore. We were fed gruesome stories with mother’s milk.

  We loved best the stories of the bloodthirsty tuanacul, the people of the forest, who would crush you in their embrace. Beautiful, strong tree men with roped muscles, who kissed you until you withered. Women with lips of petal, who lured you close and wrapped vine-like arms around you, choking the life out of you.

  I believed these stories as much as I believed in aliens and ghosts, so barely at all. Except on those days when the light was violet and the wind blew wild and the forest and fields felt restless.

  ‘Wran.’

  He said my name the way they did in the old song.

  My tormentor.

  While I was fixed on imaginary dangers, the real trouble had nestled in close. He spoke my name as gentle as a caress.

  Wran.

  He almost sighed it.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  ‘David.’ Maybe I could pretend that this was a normal chat between neighbours. ‘You have a good Christmas?’

  He reached out his other hand and steered me to face him.

  ‘Sure.’ He leaned in, smiling. ‘But I prefer Stephen’s Day.’

  He was good-looking, tall, with the back and shoulders of a rower. For the last three years, he’d attended a posh boarding school overseas. He had that easy confidence that came from wealth. From being told that he deserved the best and no one else mattered. But it was more than his rich-boy arrogance that made me despise him.

  He was one of them.

  If it wasn’t so awful, it might almost be funny, David’s instinct to target me. That somehow, blindly, in playing this game, he’d stumbled upon his true enemy. I was the Capulet to his Montague, the hot to his cold, the white queen to his black knight. I was the oil to his water, the bleach to his ammonia, the salt to his wound. We were everything that was anathema to the other.

  I was augur to his judge.

  We would never be friends.

  David didn’t know what I was, yet he sensed something was amiss. Something about me vexed him. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He didn’t know that from that very first chase years ago he’d unwittingly recognised me. This game was blueprinted in hundreds of years of hostility between judges and augurs.

  ‘About that,’ I said. ‘About the game.’ I said the word carefully, hoping he couldn’t read my fear. ‘It’s been enough.’

  ‘Enough?’

  ‘Yes. No more. This ends today.’ Maeve’s words sounded weak and watery when I said them.

  ‘Yeah?’ David seemed to have come closer without having moved at all. ‘What are you going to do about it?’ He took a drag of his cigarette before crushing it under his shoe. ‘Run?’

  ‘Nothing to chase if I’m not running.’ If only it were that simple. Better to be a hunted wren than a sitting duck.

  I pulled the whiskey from the flowery bag. But looking at David, something seemed different. He was cooler than usual. Smirkier. Behind stood his toadies, Brian and Ryan. All muscle and no brain.

  ‘I’m calling a truce, David.’ I handed over the whiskey.

  David smiled, then examined the bottle.

  ‘I’m after passing my exams,’ he said. ‘In the mood for a little celebration.’

  He twisted the cap open.

  ‘I’m getting a new tattoo to mark the occasion. Maybe a wren?’ He paused as he held the bottle to his lips. ‘In a cage. What do you think?’

  He took a slug, and slowly screwed the cap back on. He held out his hand to shake mine. Reluctant, I placed a tentative hand in his large, rough one. He closed on my fingers and pulled me towards him, whispering in my ear with whiskey-flavoured breath, ‘You better fly, little bird.’

  Pulling away, I stood my ground, holding myself stiff so that my legs wouldn’t just run, run, run, as everything inside was braced to do.

  ‘Game over,’ I said.

  ‘Little Wren, the game is just beginning.’ And there it was again, that cool assurance, which made me think that the stakes were somehow raised this year.

  I searched his face to see if he’d finally figured out why he hated me so much. As I stared, I saw a flicker of distaste, his sense that something about me was just plain wrong.

  But he didn’t know.

  He came closer. I didn’t move. This close, I could feel the heat from his chest. He reached out a hand to clamp my wrist.

  ‘Maybe we should see if your friend wants to play. What’s her name again? The pretty blonde one?’

  Nearly dropping the flowery bag, I pulled away. But damn it if I was going to let him bring Aisling into his crazy game. Even as a child playing in the woods or quarry, Aisling had never liked to run. No way would anyone do this to her.

  I turned on my heel and fled.

  ‘I’ll give you to fifty,’ David called after me.

  I was out of reach by three. I could hear him counting slowly, as if we really were playing hide-and-seek and he was being especially patient.

  It would be quicker to cut through the woods. But I wasn’t the idiot girl in the movies who hurled herself into the arms of the axe-wielding maniac by going into dark places.

  David and the others were right behind. They were gaining on me fast. Night would fall within the hour. I picked up my pace.

  Turning the bend, I saw the boy standing in the road. Waiting. His clothes were dark and the way he stood, still and slightly hunched, made me think of the tuanacul. He was like a tree come to life, sorrowful and ancient. He turned his head, and it was Cillian, wearing a mummer’s mask. The surprised, painted eyes stared at me. Of the four bullies, he was the one most likely to become a finger-severing psychopath once he graduated from terrorising girls. That boy put the kill into Cillian.

  He began the slow whistling of the song I had come to hate: The wran, the wran, the king of all birds.

  Of course they had split up. That’s why David had given me such a generous start. Cillian was ahead, waiting. To the right was the McNally farm, Cillian’s family. I couldn’t go there. Behind me, the other boys were getting closer. I could hear their answering call, fast and raucous: ‘Up with the kettle and down with the pan. Give us a penny to bury the wran.’

  So, like the idiot girl in the movies, the one who ends up hacked to bits, I ran into the woods.

  TWO

  Going to bury you

  The peonies are a study in colour: blood red on green.

  AdC

  It was darker among the trees. Moss-covered stones and exposed tree roots slowed me down, but I pushed on. Every now and then I would hear calling or whistling as they drew closer. Or maybe I imagined it. It was easy to imagine things there in the forest, there beneath the thick canopy of leaves.

  I had to get to the river, it was the easiest route home. I knew the terrain well. I’d run there in frost, rain and fog. But it was different today. It always felt different with the boys at my back. My feet were less sure. The trees had rearranged themselves, closing over the paths I knew. Ahead, I could see the crumbled outline of the ruined cottage. Behind me, whistling through the woods, was that jolly, awful tune.

  For we are the boys that come your way,

  To bury the wran on Stephen’s Day.

  I pushed harder, stumbling over the uneven ground until a partially concealed root sent me sprawling, face to dirt. I pulled myself up. Steadying against a tree, I breathed
deeply. There it was, that faint whistle. I pressed on, running through the trees, the thin branches scraping at my face and the wet leaves slippery beneath my feet.

  I reached a fallen bough that blocked the path, and was about to climb over when I saw something near the ruin. It could be just another dark forest shadow shape. Or it could be one of them. I crouched down, watching from behind the bough, taking air deep into my lungs. Nothing moved ahead and I couldn’t hear anyone behind me. But that was how David liked to play it. That was the fun of the chase: to let me get away first.

  From behind the bough, I paused to think. The river was too obvious. There were more of them and they were faster. I would almost certainly run into an ambush. But if I headed back towards the road, they might not expect that.

  My eye traced the outline of the ruin. No one ever went there. Most people in the village were wary of it, but the cottage had never bothered me. And just behind it was an overgrown path back to the road.

  Having a plan instead of running helter-skelter gave me confidence. I would do this. I would evade them. They’d had their chase. The thought of getting away brought new energy. They wouldn’t catch me this year.

  I left the path, ducking in between the trees on the slope. It slowed me down, but stealth above speed. Watching carefully, I reached the ruined cottage. Hardly a cottage, there were only the remains of four walls overgrown with moss and ivy.

  In the 1800s, the mad girl artist had lived there. Arabella de Courcy. She’d fallen in love with a tree man, the prince of the tuanacul, who lured her to the cottage. He didn’t mean to kill her, but every time he loved her he drew vitality from her. Some would swear to seeing a blonde girl in old-fashioned white petticoats between the trees, her hair like tangled branches. With lips of petals and skin as rough as bark.

  But these were just stories. Of that I was certain. Because I knew magic, and it wasn’t ghost stories about a tree girl in a ruined cottage.

  A yew had split the back wall and I pulled myself up on the trunk and climbed. From the high branches, I scanned the ground, not seeing anyone. The cold settling through my jacket, I waited.