The Wren Hunt

by Mary Watson

  ‘I want to apologise. For last night.’

  My eye fell on the fine cords of muscle in his forearms. The bones in his hands.

  ‘What exactly are you apologising for, Tarc? That charming conversation you had with Cillian? Or pulling a knife while David had me in a chokehold?’

  ‘All of that, I guess.’ He seemed miserable.

  Those veins that ran down through his hands. Part of me wanted to stretch out the tip of my finger and trace the blue thread as it disappeared beneath the muscle and bone. The more sensible half just wanted to be on the bus with the city lights fading behind me.

  ‘What were you doing last night?’ I said. ‘Where were you going?’

  He just looked at me.

  ‘Something was off,’ I went on. I knew I should walk away, stop poking at this, but my feet had rooted themselves to the paved path. ‘The way David was creeping around. That knife. Do you always carry it?’

  ‘Well, it is handy for opening parcels.’ Then he relented. ‘I work in security, Wren.’

  I wasn’t asking the right questions. But I couldn’t say what I wanted: how far would judge boys go to ensure they maintained the upper hand in the struggle with us? I wanted to know if he’d been there that night in Abbyvale when the augurs were beaten up.

  ‘Do you damage …’ the standing stone with its spray-painted smiley face, ‘… other people’s things? Their property?’

  ‘Property? What do you mean?’ And the way he looked at me, it felt like Simon reading my smallest fidgets.

  ‘Are you one of those boys?’ I tried again. ‘The kind that hurts and breaks and doesn’t care?’ Boys like David. Who’d just come out of the front door.

  David waited on the top step, a rectangular blot on my vision. He stood there behind Tarc, not saying anything.

  He was suspicious. But he had no proof. And after hearing his conversation with Cassa, I knew he’d need evidence before he could say anything about the kill mark to her. I had to make sure he didn’t get any.

  Tarc touched a hand to the creeping rose. ‘I don’t mean to be.’

  ‘But your friends are.’ I jerked my head towards David.

  Tarc turned and saw him.

  ‘Why did you go to Kilshamble, that night you gave me a lift home?’

  He hesitated. I started walking away.

  ‘Wait.’ Three steps and he was right behind me. ‘I took flowers to Arabella’s cottage.’ He shrugged. ‘Cassa asked me to.’

  ‘That’s all?’ The fresh lilies in the corner of the ruin.

  ‘That’s all.’

  I nodded and walked out into the late afternoon, going beyond my bus stop to the next. I passed the Orchard of the Hungry Marys – once a field of apple trees, now a fancy hotel – where shamed women who’d been cast from their families would gather.

  How relieved I was that Tarc hadn’t damaged the Laceys’ stone. And also annoyed, because I shouldn’t have cared.

  But I did care. I cared more than I wanted to. If I’d trailed a ribbon each time I travelled to and from Harkness House, I would have left an intricate pattern over these last weeks. The endless repetition of coming into the city, to the house, and then leaving again at the end of each day. The slight variations when I stopped for a tea or walked to the next bus stop. This pattern was an oversight in the plan. Or perhaps a risk Smith decided to take, that this repeated moving between two destinations would set up a relationship between them and me, not unlike a wickering.

  And there I was, caught somewhere in the middle.

  FIFTEEN

  Everything that is wrong with us

  There must be something wrong in the kitchen. Our meals taste as though they have been seasoned with sawdust.

  AdC

  The page was filled with neat ink scratches, the regular lines and shapes that made up the Ogham alphabet. The markings had been made on thick paper that had been folded along the same grooves many times.

  I was in Maeve’s kitchen, the stolen page in front of me. With the help of Maeve’s Ogham reference book, I was decoding the script and translating to English. The page had sparked a burning curiosity in me and I had to know what it meant before handing it over. So far, I had the title: The Definitive Traits of the … But I was stuck on a symbol. It looked like a quinquetra, a five-fold knot, and resembled a flower. Not Ogham; I’d never seen it before.

  Aisling sat across from me, murdering a bowl of ice cream. Beside her, Sibéal wore large white-framed sunglasses. She’d been shading a figure of a girl running. But she’d stopped minutes ago, the storyboard and selection of pencils abandoned. Listless, she looked out of the large windows, face turned to the sky.

  I knew what she was doing. I’d done the same thing in the weeks before I turned sixteen: gazing at the clouds, chasing the flight patterns of birds, frowning at bodies, staring unblinkingly at flames, trying to trigger a talent.

  ‘I heard there’s going to be an Arabella de Courcy Retrospective down at the hotel. Big party planned in two weeks,’ Aisling said.

  ‘Yeah, Cassa told me.’ I was only half listening as I decoded the marks on the sheet of paper.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ Aisling sounded annoyed, but I wasn’t sure. I peered across at her. She was such an advert, creamy-skinned girl with spoon between luscious lips.

  One of the slanted lines was obscured by a fold. The paper had worn thin there and I raised the page, tilting it to get a better view.

  ‘Wren.’ Definitely peeved at me.

  ‘What?’ I looked up at her. ‘I didn’t think it mattered.’

  ‘The village will be crawling with judges.’ She stood up, her chair scraping the tiles.

  ‘Newsflash, the village is crawling with them.’

  I’d figured out the next section: Almost an orphan.

  How was someone almost an orphan?

  ‘You should have told us.’

  Actually, thinking about it, I was almost an orphan. Hadn’t a clue about my father. And, frankly, the dead/alive status of my parents hadn’t really mattered these last seventeen years. They were as good as dead for all the parenting they’d done.

  ‘I forgot.’ I glanced up again.

  Sibéal held a snowdrop to her eyes. Through her sunglasses, she was squinting at the green and white heart. Aisling was beside her, just standing there and staring at me, empty bowl in hand. I covered the stolen sheet with another page, an old poem in Ogham.

  ‘What else have you forgotten?’ Aisling said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, my hand feeling the stolen page I was hiding beneath the old poem. ‘I try to give an account of what I see at Harkness House. Sometimes I make mistakes.’

  But Aisling was right to question me. There were things I was withholding. Like Tarc’s tattoo. His lips on my cheek. The page under my hand. Again, I felt that mix of shame and exasperation. I wanted them to stop at me. I felt guilty for keeping my secrets.

  ‘Why are you so interested?’ I diverted the conversation. ‘Is it because of Simon?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Aisling’s attempt to dissemble was a dead giveaway. Any doubts she and Simon were hiding something from me vanished.

  ‘Are you and Simon still trying to do my job for me?’

  ‘Simon and I are … just getting to know each other better.’ The way she looked at me made me wonder if I’d totally misunderstood. I couldn’t be sure whether Aisling and Simon were investigating on their own or if it was something else. All I knew was that Aisling and I used to tell each other everything. Now we didn’t. And it sucked.

  Aisling leaned over my shoulder, and my breath caught. I’d covered the stolen page, but not the words I’d translated.

  ‘Poems about orphans? In Ogham? Seriously,’ she said, taking her bowl to the sink. ‘That’s just weird.’

  She left the kitchen and it still didn’t feel right between us. Perhaps it was because of the night she’d appeared at Cassa’s party, in white tulle. The night I realised that there were
limits to what she shared with me.

  Sibéal was now looking into a kaleidoscope, her left eye screwed shut and her mouth a little open as she turned it round and round. My sleeve had furrowed up my arm, and I could see the raised, bumpy skin from my almost imaginary snakebite.

  I pulled the Ogham sheet from beneath the poem. After thirty minutes, I had a list.

  The Definitive Traits of the :

  Almost an orphan.

  Grows where the last trod.

  Steals the love [lost to the fold of the page] from the garden.

  Marked by the garden.

  Wakens the doll.

  Sees what isn’t [lost to the fold of the page].

  From the line of the judges.

  Brings the golden time.

  While I puzzled over the list, Sibéal pushed back her chair and moved to the window. She opened it, letting in a rush of cold air. Climbing on to the window ledge, she leaned out. She looked like the figurehead on a ship. Or a girl about to jump.

  ‘Shibs,’ I said. ‘You know some of the stories and traditions of the judges, right? Tell me about the second golden era.’

  Sibéal didn’t answer. She seemed so unlike herself. The kitchen was freezing but still she leaned out of the window, her body a line of steel.

  ‘The second ré órga,’ she spoke eventually, ‘was in the late nineteenth century, and it was all about making money. It wasn’t enough to physically outclass us, they had to be richer too.’

  She finally looked at me, her large sunglasses covering nearly half her face. Outside, a fat cloud blotted the sun.

  ‘I don’t think you can blame them for that,’ I said mildly. ‘I doubt being better than augurs was their main motivation.’

  Sibéal jumped down from the window ledge.

  ‘I blame them for everything that is wrong with us,’ she spat. ‘They’ve destroyed our nemeta by putting in roads and fugly shopping centres.’

  She stood there like a vengeful angel.

  ‘Isn’t that in the hands of the county council, not the judges?’ I tried to placate her.

  ‘And who do you think owns the county council?’ she snapped. ‘In the last seventy years they’ve ensured that they either own it or destroy it. Leaving us with the dregs. That’s your Cassa Harkness. Remember that when you make her tea.’

  ‘I understand you’re upset,’ I said. Sibéal’s simmering anger about her not-yet-emerged talent found an easy target with the judges. ‘I’ve been there. But –’

  ‘But what, Wren?’ She pulled off her sunglasses. I was astonished at how wretched she looked. Her eyes were puffy from crying and there were dark half-moons beneath them. ‘You going to tell me they’re not all like that? Because, really, you’ve been eating cake with them and oh look, they’re all cute fluffy teddies underneath.’

  ‘Oh, Sibéal,’ I said. ‘I wish I could help.’

  ‘You can help.’ She pushed the sunglasses back on and picked up her pencil. ‘Stop being so afraid. Get what we need from Cassa Harkness. Don’t let your fear screw this up.’

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ I said, stung.

  ‘Yes you are. You’re a big scaredy cat, and that’s going to be our undoing.’

  ‘I have to tread carefully with Cassa. She’s no fool.’

  ‘You’re asking me about the judges but you’re the one who’s with them every day. Why haven’t you opened doors that you’re not supposed to open? Why haven’t you stolen documents or uncovered secrets?’

  ‘It’s not that easy to snoop when –’ And I stopped. I couldn’t explain it. That push and pull. She was right. I was holding back. And it was because I wasn’t sure of anything any more. I felt the draw of Harkness House. I felt loyalty to my grove. It left me confused.

  ‘When you’re scared,’ she finished for me. ‘I wish it had been me. I wouldn’t be checking over my shoulder every minute. I would have owned this.’

  ‘It’s freezing in here.’ Maeve came in, immediately sensing the odd mood.

  She pulled the window shut and Sibéal turned away, hiding her obvious anger. ‘You girls OK?’

  ‘Grand, Maeve,’ I said. ‘Just heading home.’ Sibéal wouldn’t look at me and I was peeved because she’d hit a nerve.

  Gathering my things, I paused at the list. Now that it was translated, I had no reason to keep it. I should hand it over to Maeve. Prove Sibéal wrong.

  But I didn’t want to. Translating the list hadn’t eased my curiosity. If anything, it was stronger now. I wanted to know what it meant. If I handed the list to Maeve, she’d give it to the circle and I’d hear nothing more.

  ‘Wren,’ Maeve said in a low voice, glancing at Sibéal, who took no notice of us. I pressed the folder against my stomach.

  ‘Did you get an answer for me?’ She tilted her head towards Sibéal.

  ‘I tried once, but nothing.’

  ‘Once?’ Maeve said.

  ‘I’ll give it another shot.’

  With a last glance at Sibéal, who was now holding a pencil and glaring at her storyboard, I went next door to Carraig Cottage and found Smith out in the back garden. He was peering into a large cardboard box. Something moved angrily inside.

  ‘What’s that?’ I said.

  ‘Ruth Lacey got word of a divining hen down in Carlow.’

  ‘For ooscopy?’ None of us had that talent.

  ‘With a divining hen,’ Smith pre-empted my objection, ‘any talented augur can read its egg. You’ll be guided in the interpretation by how the yolk spreads. The egg does the work, not the augur.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Your talent is the best suited to this. You’re the only one who sees beyond the present.’

  I went over and looked inside the box and stared down at the furious black hen. Smith already kept hens, it wouldn’t put him out to have another.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Maeve is convinced there must be a faster way to bind to a nemeton. She’s really excited. It’s not easy sourcing a divining hen, you know.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  Smith lifted the box into the hen enclosure and tilted it.

  She came out like a dark wave, wings flapping wildly, and squawking at us in a volley of clucks. Taking two cautious steps, she looked around her new home, unimpressed.

  ‘So I have to collect an egg?’ I said. ‘Then what?’

  ‘Maeve has the instructions,’ Smith said, bending down to pick up a hurley stick that was half hidden in the grass. ‘She lays blue eggs, so we’ll know which are hers.’

  He positioned the long wooden hurley in his hands. I picked up the sliotar, the leather ball, and threw it to him.

  ‘Have you been in the shed lately?’ he said, tossing the sliotar up and whacking it with the flat end of the hurley. It zipped right over my head before bouncing against the wall.

  ‘No.’

  When he was young and jobs were scarce, Smith had worked as a bricklayer in Manchester. Beneath the sag, the hard muscle from years of physical labour was still there. He’d always loved sports, especially hurling, and he’d tried to hide his disappointment that I could barely tell one end of the stick from the other.

  ‘Something’s got inside.’ He struck the sliotar. ‘A magpie.’

  It bounced back and he caught it, glancing briefly at me before striking again.

  ‘Built a nest up in the beams.’ Catching the sliotar, he turned to the shed wall beyond the hen enclosure and aimed there. ‘She’s messing my floor.’

  ‘Sure she’s just looking for shelter,’ I said. ‘It’s been a hard winter.’

  ‘Not in my shed.’

  Smith hit too high and the sliotar went into the field next door. I scaled the high stone wall to retrieve it. The horses looked at me curiously. Finding the ball, I climbed up again. Balancing at the top of the wall, I called, ‘Smith!’ as I poised to throw the sliotar to him.

  But he was already mid-swing. He twisted his body and the broad, flat end of the hurley hit an object with a powerful thud. A
strike like that should have sent the sliotar over the roof, but instead I saw an explosion of feathers. Red and feathers spattered over the grass. The hen clucked, either in excitement or disapproval.

  ‘Keep clear of the shed,’ Smith said. ‘Unless you want to clean it out.’

  ‘What was that?’ I climbed too fast down the wall, banging my knee hard against the stone. I scrambled over to Smith, ignoring the dull throb in my leg.

  ‘Magpie,’ he said, stepping over the mess of feathers and blood. I looked at him, incredulous. I wasn’t sure if the sick feeling came from the pain shooting up my leg or from looking at the remains of the bird Smith had killed.

  ‘Ah, Wren,’ he said, looking at my face. ‘Magpies are pests. You should see the state of the shed.’

  He threw the sliotar at me and, off guard, I only just caught it.

  ‘Come on, let’s get the tea.’ Smith examined the flat edge of the hurley as we walked back inside, his arm draped lightly across my shoulders.

  SIXTEEN

  Not a virgin sacrifice

  I saw the meat hooks strung with red flesh.

  AdC

  ‘I’ll be there with you,’ Aisling said, but it wasn’t true. She’d be at the Arabella de Courcy exhibition party, but she wouldn’t be with me.

  In the mirror, I could see her skin was glowing, her eyes bright. She wore a black dress that made her hair shine like a halo.

  ‘You aren’t wearing that, are you?’ Aisling turned from her reflection and looked at my jeans.

  I wasn’t feeling it. Excitement had been growing in the village these last days. Not because people wanted to see Arabella’s art, but because they’d heard the rumours about Cassa’s lavish parties. If I could skip it, I would. But Cassa had invited me herself, and she was a hard woman to refuse.

  ‘It’s a judge party. You can’t wear jeans.’ Aisling was at my wardrobe. She drew out a long white dress. Sorcha’s. The only thing of hers I owned.

  ‘It’s a party,’ I rolled my eyes, ‘not a virgin sacrifice.’ We didn’t do those any more.

  ‘This one then.’ She pulled out another dress. ‘Demon green. Just like your eyes.’