The Wren Hunt

by Mary Watson

  The room looked like a magazine photo spread: excessive amounts of marble, uncomfortable antique chairs and strange-looking knick-knacks that were probably worth more than I’d earn in my lifetime. The kind of room where you’d just love to let loose a bunch of muddy, sugar-high children.

  As we walked towards the office, Tarc explained security codes and swipe cards. ‘It’s a very advanced security system.’ Most crystal heiresses didn’t need security.

  ‘Yep.’ We went through the office doors.

  ‘Gallagher, you’re late.’ David was cheerful.

  ‘And you’re skiving,’ Tarc said to David, who insisted it didn’t matter that he’d finished his training early because he was such a big, strong lump already.

  ‘Looks like you brought the dirt in,’ Cillian said, looking at me.

  ‘Don’t be a dick, Cillian,’ Tarc said, his eyes flashing with irritation. Maybe he was less Team David than I’d thought. But what did it matter if he was marginally less evil than expected? He was a judge.

  ‘Wren,’ Laney said. ‘Dr Harkness is waiting for you.’

  Her face was smooth and polished, her light-blonde hair streaked with silver strands. She wore dark-red lipstick that stood out against the pale thinness of her. Cassa Harkness was delicate with a fine chiselling that shaped her cheekbones and clavicles, that made each bone on her chest visible beneath her skin. She looked breakable.

  She didn’t say anything, running her eyes over my clothes, my hair that hung wild. Untidy. I should have remembered Maeve’s lucky combs crushed at the bottom of my bag. A light perfume filled the air.

  ‘It’s good to meet you, Dr Harkness,’ I said. I wasn’t sure if it was the lie that made me so nervous or if it was her.

  ‘Everyone calls me Cassa,’ she said. She spoke with a vague air, and I couldn’t tell whether she’d made a random observation or an invitation to do the same.

  Definitely her that made me nervous.

  ‘Cassa.’ I struggled beneath her gaze. She was like the sun, and I was wilting.

  ‘You’re the Kilshamble girl.’

  If they were very talented, I could pick out augurs in a crowd because I felt a pull towards them, like a weak magnetic draw. But there was something else with Cassa. Not a draw, more like a small bite of static. Something that made me want to pull back. Her eyes continued to fix on me and her gaze was greedy.

  ‘David’s told me a lot about you.’

  Crap.

  ‘Do I need to fact-check what he’s said?’ My stupid wide smile tried to pass the words as a joke but they fell flat.

  ‘He said he likes your hair.’ The look on her face suggested she didn’t agree.

  I swallowed hard. The silence dragged out, making me uncomfortable.

  ‘We went to school together. Long ago. Before he left and, uh, I …’ I trailed off. Cassa wouldn’t want to hear about how Smith began my homeschooling when I was fourteen.

  Tapping her pen, Cassa was aggressively bored by my attempt at conversation. I was bricking it. No way could I manage more than a week with this woman.

  Her gaze drifted outside and I lost her attention. My sun had clouded over. But I’d been warned about the judges’ charm, that strange magnetism that drew people to them and made them such good politicians and lawyers.

  ‘You may go.’ She didn’t bother to look at me.

  Turning away, it felt like I’d disappointed her. And it made me feel odd. She’s a manipulative woman, Smith had said, and I began to guess how right he was.

  ‘It’s beautiful.’ I stopped. On the wall beside the doors was a painting. A watercolour of an orchid.

  ‘That’s an Arabella de Courcy.’

  I was beginning to understand why Cassa was so passionate about the artist. The picture was simple and elegant. Clean lines and perfect light. The clear, almost scientific precision of it so deeply at odds with the dark stories of the woodland siren creeping along mossy beds.

  ‘Do you have more?’ I turned to Cassa, who’d resumed her staring.

  ‘Many more,’ she said. ‘If you want, I’ll show you.’

  ‘I’d like that.’

  When she smiled, she drew me to her. I left her office reminding myself of the Abbyvale three.

  The wicker man, Aisling’s voice in my head added helpfully.

  Ignoring the kitchen area, where the security boys were still gathered, I went to my desk. A stack of reports had been dumped there for filing.

  A burst of laughter came from the other side of the room. David. I pulled at the neck of my shirt. It was too hot. My skinnies had my knees in a death grip.

  Skewering my hair into a loose bun with Maeve’s lucky combs, I tried to block out David’s voice.

  ‘Got a new one for you,’ he said to the boys.

  Briefly, I peered up at them. Tarc leaned against the wall, listening. Watching.

  ‘How many augurs does it take to change a light bulb?’ David continued.

  My whole body stiffened. I willed myself to relax. Keep on reading. Don’t let them see that the word means something.

  ‘Thirteen. One to hold the light bulb in place and twelve to drink enough to make the room spin.’ He chuckled at his own joke, Cillian and Brian joining in.

  The words on the page blurred while I tried to quell the anger he’d stirred. That’s what they thought of us: a bunch of drunk, useless fairground fortune tellers.

  My head jerked up without permission and I saw Tarc unsmiling against the wall. He seemed kinder than the others. Or maybe I just didn’t want him to be like them because he had nice shoulders and eyes like shiny marbles. Which should have been kinda freaky. But they weren’t. Looking at him from beneath my tumbling down hair, I did feel a small prick of guilt that succeeding at my mission would get him in trouble.

  I’d do this as fast as possible, I told myself, and soon Harkness House would be a bad memory. As soon as the archive arrived, I’d be all over it like a rash. I’d find the map quickly – how hard could it be?

  Tarc peeled himself from the wall. ‘Break’s over. Get your lazy asses back to work.’

  But I suspected that Tarc hadn’t been on a break. That he’d spent coffee time sussing out the new girl.

  Picking up a pen, I took off the lid. Laney walked by, her heels little dagger stabs to the floor. Flicking through the post, she disappeared into Cassa’s office.

  ‘You anxious?’

  I knew he was behind me before I heard Tarc speak. I twisted to see him as he leaned over me, placing a shiny laptop on the desk.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ Still hovering over me, he opened the laptop.

  ‘I don’t know, maybe it’s the murderous angle at which you’re holding the pen.’

  I realised how tightly I’d been clutching it and let go. And with the relief came an inadvertent smile. He straightened up and I felt the loss of his warmth.

  Tarc is the snake. Tarc is the snake with two heads, I reminded myself. He would hate me if he knew who I was. He would not hesitate to destroy me if he found me stealing from the archive. He would fight augurs without remorse to protect what they had stolen from us.

  He was one of them. He was the head of security, I was the breach. Only trouble lay ahead.

  Calista’s boys roughed them up really bad.

  ‘This laptop has to stay in Harkness House because it contains confidential information. I’ll run through passwords now, if you like.’

  ‘Your tattoo,’ I said without thinking. ‘Does it mean anything?’

  ‘Don’t most tattoos?’ he said. ‘I kind of want something to have significance if it’s in permanent ink. On my skin.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘It’s a warning,’ he said.

  Right.

  ‘Do you have others?’ I couldn’t see any, despite his short sleeves. ‘I mean, under your clothes?’

  What was wrong with me? Was it inappropriate hour or something?

  ‘One more.’ He was trying not to smile. �
��But I need to know you a little better first.’

  If I was the kind to blush, it would have been at his teasing. He grinned and said, ‘Your chin. It goes all stiff and pointed when you’re awkward.’

  Great, a stiff chin. What every girl wants. I stopped myself from grabbing the pen again. Never mind knots, there were snakes writhing in my gut.

  ‘We’re not so bad,’ Tarc said in such a low voice as he leaned down that I almost didn’t hear it. Shoulders close to mine, he powered on the computer. It was how he said it: just a little bit bad. Bad in the right way.

  ‘What kind of a name is Tarc, anyway?’ I steered my mind to safer terrain.

  ‘Don’t laugh. It’s short for Tarquin.’

  I laughed: ‘You don’t look like a Tarquin.’

  ‘What do Tarquins look like, then?’ he mimicked my question from earlier.

  ‘Well, their roots are gnarled,’ I began and then stopped, awkward. I was flirting again. My chin must have been like a plank of wood.

  ‘Tarc.’ Cassa stood at her office door. It was nearly indiscernible, her distress. She smoothed her hair with one hand and blinked a couple of times too quickly, and somehow that gave it away. Tarc stood straight and touched my arm.

  ‘We’ll do this later,’ he said and ambled over as if there was nothing wrong. But neither of them fooled me. Something had upset Cassa. I wanted to know what could bring such a cold woman to the brink of tears. Just in case.

  NINE

  Frog in a pot

  A pale, washed-out butcher’s wife grabbed my skirt while out today. She said to me: ‘You are one of us.’ One of us, dreadful words from a toothless drudge.

  AdC

  I was trying not to cry over spilled milk when Aisling came in through the back door. She stamped her feet, shaking rain on the mat.

  ‘Mam says not to be late for the circle meeting.’ She stopped in the doorway, eyes narrowed. ‘What are you doing?’

  She looked at the wooden table where I sat. Last night’s dishes drying on the sink. A pot of tea, porridge. The smear of milk over wood whorls. Of them all, it was hardest to hide from Aisling.

  ‘Having breakfast.’ The milk splotch looked like a dragon. I covered it with my sleeve. ‘There’s more in the pot.’

  Aisling cast a glance at Smith’s gloopy porridge and pulled a face.

  ‘No thanks.’ Putting the kettle on, she said, ‘Mam made a loaf.’

  Aisling unwrapped the bread from its brown paper and the sweet smell of warm raisins escaped.

  Her movements slow and precise as she cut a slice. She sawed through the crust, and then the knife slipped through the flesh of the loaf. She was humming softly, a regular ti-dee-dum, ti-dee-dum. Gripping the loaf, she cut another, then another. So careful, so deliberate. She turned to the press and reached for a mug, banging it softly on the dum, then again and then again.

  I tried to stop the smile from forming, but I couldn’t. Sometimes, Aisling was so obvious. I looked down at the table, my hair hiding my face while she continued to slice bread, take out plates, pour tea. Every movement slow and exact, following the beat of her wordless tune.

  ‘Are you wickering me?’ I said.

  She gave a small smile and said with no surprise, ‘Ah, you got me.’

  But still she tapped a single finger on the table. Every small movement, every sound was rhythmic, like she was forming a web around me. Wickerings were usually benign, most commonly meant to ease and calm the unsuspecting person on whom they were performed. It was almost like hypnosis, capturing a person in the thrall of another, through rhythmic sounds and repeated actions that some augurs could learn with training and practice. Aisling and Maeve were both pretty good at it. I was pretty good at resisting it.

  ‘Did it work?’ A big, broad smile, and I wasn’t sure if she reminded me of a vampire or a toothpaste advert. That was Aisling, always straddling the line between wholesome and frightening.

  ‘Nope. Still like a frog in a pot.’

  ‘Well, I tried.’ She took a sip of tea. ‘Want to tell me what’s wrong?’

  I hadn’t spilled the milk deliberately, but when I saw the vague outline of a dragon, I chased it. It didn’t come at once. After three minutes of making my eyes glaze over, I got a short, sharp flash. I hoped I was wrong.

  Aisling picked up a slice of bread and thickened it with butter.

  ‘A little bread with your butter?’ I grabbed mine before she could give me a heart attack. Not for the first time, it occurred to me that despite her talent, Aisling would make a terrible nurse.

  We sat for a few moments in comfortable silence. Ten minutes before the circle meeting where I’d talk about my first week at Harkness House. But the milk dragon had left me unsettled.

  ‘Ash,’ I said. ‘What if the plan doesn’t work?’

  ‘How could that happen?’ She spoke carefully. ‘Once you get the map, Mam will track down the stones and fix the nemeta.’ She took a huge bite of her bread.

  ‘And find Sorcha.’

  Aisling nodded, her mouth full.

  ‘But what if it’s worse to find her than to have her lost?’

  ‘Ah,’ she said, her face relaxing with the sudden understanding. ‘It’s your mother you’re worried about.’

  ‘Sorcha,’ I corrected.

  ‘A mother never forgets her child,’ Maeve’s voice interrupted from the kitchen door. Sibéal appeared behind her. ‘They can cut the baby’s cord, but never the tie that binds.’

  Aisling rolled her eyes. I studied the butter on my bread. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear this. I was ambivalent about Sorcha. Part of me wanted to believe Maeve’s talk of enduring connections, but it was hard to get over the whole abandoning me as a baby thing.

  Maeve wrapped her arms around me, folding me into her snapdragon dress. She loved bold, exotic prints. Dresses with biting flowers and sharp, pointed vines. I could spend days in those dresses. I could find whole worlds between Maeve’s bosom and her lap.

  Sometimes I tried to direct my visions. I would focus on a specific question. With the milk dragon, I’d asked where Sorcha was. And I was disturbed by the answer: Sorcha wearing a yellow oilskin and huddled on a grey bed in a grey room, arms around her legs. She lifted her head, her eyes sad and vacant. Her skin was dull, her hair lank.

  Maeve sat at the table. ‘You are like my very own daughter. I first held you when you were a tiny baby. All sallow and scrawny.’

  ‘Aw,’ Sibéal smirked.

  ‘Not much has changed.’ Aisling laughed into her tea.

  ‘You were frighteningly silent,’ said Maeve. ‘So miserable, and yet you never cried.’

  And again, I wondered what Sorcha was thinking that night she left. I wondered whether she passed by the cot with a sickly baby between taking the watch and the earrings. And even now, I wished I knew if she regretted anything of that night.

  ‘That’s because Wren always soldiers on.’ I thought there was a sharpness to her words, but Aisling was laughing.

  Maeve looked at her watch. ‘Here, we’d better head off.’

  ‘Come and see my new storyboard, Wren?’ Sibéal said. ‘After the meeting?’

  With her dark hair and dark eyes, Sibéal looked nothing like the others. Aisling called her a changeling. Sibéal claimed that nothing would have made her happier, but really, she was all about family.

  ‘I don’t know. Does it have a PG rating?’

  ‘There’s blood.’

  ‘A romance, then. Does it involve falling in love with something human, animal or plant?’ I said.

  ‘They’re here.’ Maeve was looking out of the living-room window. ‘Hurry, Wren.’

  Downing the bitter dregs of tea, I followed Maeve next door, to Cairn House.

  I’d never been to a circle meeting before. They were usually closed to the rest of us who weren’t in the circle of seven, the higher-ranking draoithe who advised Maeve and made decisions for the grove. But today I was a special guest.

  The m
eeting was in Maeve’s good sitting room. As I entered, I kissed Smith and Simon on the cheek. Old Cormac O’Reilly grabbed my hand with his dry, scaly paw. Fidelma Walsh, a pharmacist with a fine sense of pattern, pulled me into a squashy hug. Her son, Dermot, smiled, his eyes bright behind his glasses. Colm Wood, a history teacher who lived two villages over, raised a hand in greeting.

  As I sat, I cast a glance at Simon. It was generally agreed that he’d be ard-draoi when Maeve eventually stepped down. He was young, but his talent was strong and he was passionate about the grove. A little serious, a little too tough guy, but a good friend. Sometimes, a little more. Simon caught me looking and winked. For the first time, his attention felt heavy, not entirely welcome. But I wouldn’t examine this unexpected change. Wouldn’t question whether it had anything to do with a certain stormy-eyed boy with a snake tattoo.

  ‘The Lucas archive hasn’t arrived,’ I said, once everyone was seated. ‘It will be a few weeks before I can get in.’

  I told them about my first meeting with Cassa, how intense she was.

  ‘Talk us through her security.’ Maeve was different here, leading a circle meeting. Sharper, more decisive.

  ‘A state-of-the-art alarm system was installed recently. The security boys are all judges, rather than an outside professional company. But they take it very seriously. They patrol the house and gardens regularly. Cassa never leaves without at least one of them with her. They’re strong.’ Though we knew that from what happened with the Abbyvale three. ‘They train every morning between seven thirty and ten.’

  ‘Mick Murphy said there were two of them that night in Abbyvale. That sound right?’ said Maeve.

  ‘Only two?’ I said, hoping that Tarc wasn’t one of them.

  ‘Who’s in charge?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Tarc Gallagher.’

  ‘Gallagher?’ Smith said, his brow creasing. ‘One of Theo Gallagher’s boys? I didn’t realise they were around.’

  Tarc was unexpected then. I should tell them about his tattoo, that I’d seen it years ago in a vision. But what if I told them and I wasn’t allowed back? Aisling would replace me without hesitation.

  ‘And the office staff?’ Fidelma said. ‘How involved are they?’