The Wren Hunt

by Mary Watson

  ‘Can we talk?’ Aisling said.

  ‘Sure.’ I forced a smile. ‘Can we get out of here?’

  We walked towards the village. Never had we gone this long without speaking.

  ‘How’s it been? Harkness House?’ Aisling broke the silence.

  I shrugged.

  ‘I miss you so much.’ She threw her arms around me, her body wracking with sobs. ‘I wish we’d never started any of this. I wish we could go back to that morning before the Ask.’

  She looked at me with watery eyes. Puppy eyes. The eyes of a loyal friend.

  ‘What is it, Ash?’

  But she shook her head and smiled through her tears, ‘Let’s get something to eat.’

  We went to the Gargoyle, and I was glad to erase the memory of that awful fight. At our usual table, beneath the ugly gargoyle faces, I gave an exaggerated bow in greeting.

  ‘Has anything happened?’ she said tentatively as I sat down. ‘It looks … intense.’ She circled a finger in the direction of my head.

  Was I a little more unhinged? Probably. I’d found out I was half judge, I was either haunted by a doll or forgetting things. And I’d kissed Tarc. I must have been sending out all kinds of odd vibes.

  ‘Smith is concerned,’ she said. ‘It’s not good for him, all this worry.’

  ‘What exactly is the matter with Smith, and when were you planning to tell me?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Aisling was suddenly unable to meet my eye.

  ‘Ash?’ I was no stranger to fear, not after years of David’s game. But this kind of fear was different. It felt like my blood had frozen. Like everything around me had stilled while I waited for her to reply.

  ‘It’s his blood pressure,’ she relented.

  ‘Did something happen?’

  ‘Back in January it went scary high. If I hadn’t been there, he would have had a stroke. I took him to the hospital. And as long as he stays on meds, doesn’t overexert himself or get too stressed, he’ll be OK.’

  ‘Why would he hide that from me?’ I said, trying to control the rising panic. Smith couldn’t die. I couldn’t lose him.

  ‘You’ve a lot going on. He didn’t want you to have something else to worry about. Smith promised he’d tell you when this is finished. High blood pressure is common. I’m watching it. He’ll be fine.’

  ‘What can I get you girls?’ The waitress appeared at our table, her upbeat tone jarring.

  ‘You should have told me,’ I said when the waitress left.

  ‘I wanted to.’ She fiddled with her hair. ‘But I worried it would guilt you into soldiering on. That if you knew Smith was sick, you’d keep going until you were completely lost.’

  But it was Aisling who sounded lost.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ From my pocket, I pulled out the sketch of the Bláithín symbol Colm Wood had dropped on my lap.

  She wavered, and I thought she would say no. But she was feeling it too, that gap growing between us. A gap that started with a white tulle dress and a folded square of paper taken from a box. A small perforation slowly tearing bigger and bigger.

  ‘There’s an old story,’ Aisling said, staring at the symbol. ‘Centuries ago, in the days of open warfare, an augur girl stumbled upon a judge settlement. From behind the trees, she saw a beautiful boy. Hidden, she would watch him every day. She loved seeing him cut wood, fetch water from the river. But unknown to her, other judge boys noticed her returning day after day and they thought she was spying on them.’

  The gargoyles seemed to lean in closer. Aisling had always said they loved a good secret.

  ‘Eventually the beautiful boy caught her,’ she continued. ‘He knew she was an augur but they fell in love, meeting in the hollow of an oak. But one day, as she was leaving, the other judge boys followed. Certain she was a spy, they chased her through the forest, into a field and through a meadow. Desperate, she begged a circle of oaks to shelter her. They took mercy and disguised her as a meadowsweet plant.

  ‘Months later, after a brutal battle between judges and augurs, her judge boy was horribly injured. The girl found him among the dying on the battleground and dragged him to the oaks. She begged them to heal him. This time there was a price: she was to become one of them as they’d grown very attached to her. So she became meadowsweet for three years. He was healed, and when she was girl again, she joined his gairdín.’

  ‘She abandoned us?’ I was appalled. What could make an augur turn away and embrace her enemy?

  ‘But she was never the same. Even though she looked the same, sounded the same, she’d lost part of herself when she became meadowsweet. She had metamorphosed into someone who was part plant, part woman. The Bláithín.’

  Aisling looked at me intently, like she was telling me something beneath her words. Above her, an open-mouthed gargoyle looked like it was bursting with glee.

  ‘You know their golden ages? How the first ré órga brought a military revolution and the second brought ridiculous wealth? Some judges believe that each ré órga is linked to a Bláithín. The first one revolutionised their military. Arabella de Courcy brought back their prosperity. Now there’s talk of a third.’

  And I finally understood what I’d known for some time.

  ‘Cassa’s looking for a girl.’ But those words were inadequate to convey what she was really after.

  ‘Cassa believes that when the third girl turns,’ Aisling said, ‘she will bring a reawakening of strong, pure magic. The third ré órga.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ I said. Judge lore was hard to access. I’d spent months at Harkness House and only managed snippets.

  ‘Simon.’

  Light flutter of her hand to her neck. She was uncomfortable. But if something was happening between them I’d be delighted.

  ‘All judges anticipate the third ré órga,’ she continued. ‘But most don’t connect it to the myth of the Bláithín. Rather, they link it to the decline of augurs. Some of them are keen for a bloodbath because they believe our ruin will bring on their golden age. Word is, they’re getting impatient.’

  The waitress appeared with our pizza and Aisling fell silent. When she left, Aisling was so intent on her plate it looked like she was counting the pepperoni.

  ‘There’s something else. Mam said it would distract you. Confuse you. It’s about the doll.’

  ‘The not-brídeog?’

  Aisling flushed red. ‘There’s a judge tradition where girls are given tree and flower dolls by older women in their family. It’s a keepsake, and the dolls are often handed down through generations. The story goes that if the doll comes to life, then the girl has been chosen. By the original Bláithín.’

  ‘That’s supposed to be a quaint family tradition?’ I felt sheer terror. ‘Sounds like a fucking nightmare.’

  ‘It’s just a story. Like Santa. The doll never comes to life.’ She looked distressed.

  ‘I heard a few girls in the village received dolls just like yours.’ The way she looked just then, her bright, open face, I was reminded of what Laney had said. A daisy. Aisling was a daisy. Her fresh, easy beauty.

  ‘Cassa sent the dolls. She thinks it could be you.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Won’t even see it coming

  It feels as though all the bones in my legs and arms have broken and are trying to re-form into something else.

  AdC

  The day of the fire, Cassa was hosting an Arabella de Courcy coffee morning at the historical institute. Most of the team were with her. In the office, Laney was on the phone, ruining someone’s day after finding mistakes in the glossy Arabella brochure. Ledger Man was fixing the Foundation’s crashed website. I’d used Cassa’s absence to snoop downstairs for the stone but found nothing.

  Now, at my desk, I searched recent news. I’d found damaged standing stones and a ring of burial stones defaced with paint. I guessed that the orchard at Newton Grange, the fire that had distressed Tarc so much, was a nemeton bonded to the judges. The axed beec
h tree in Wicklow appeared to be ours. There was no question that someone was vandalising nemeta. But I couldn’t see why, if both judge and augur nemeta were targeted.

  Trying to make sense of it, I gazed out of the tall window. Desecrating a nemeton, any nemeton, was the most sacrilegious thing draoithe could do. And we certainly wouldn’t damage our own, so who was doing it? Who would know where to find them? The only thing that made sense was if there were still bards around. But that was impossible.

  Consumed by thoughts of zombie bards hell-bent on revenge, I didn’t register the smoke at the edge of the window. Rushing over, I saw hungry orange flames rising from the heart of the garden. From Cassa’s walled garden.

  Calling for help, I ran out of the office, through the hall and out of the garden door. I heard Laney shouting behind me. The smell of smoke and fire was thick in the air.

  The fire was contained within the walled garden. I’d seen pop-up sprinkler heads inside it, so I knew there was an irrigation system but I had no idea where the valve was. I couldn’t see any pipes outside the garden. It had to be inside. Taking off my cardigan, I held it over my mouth and nose and opened the door.

  I hadn’t gone far when heat and smoke began to overwhelm me. Eyes burning, I followed one of the pipes, edging further into the walled garden. And then I couldn’t. Fighting for air, I had to get out.

  I collided with Tarc. His hoodie was tied around his face and he ran on, heading for the wall.

  I was wheezing towards the door when the sprinklers piped through the garden came on at full blast.

  Tarc ran down the path, pulling me with him. Outside the walled garden, away from the smoke, we took deep breaths through sore, swollen airways. I bent over, resting my hands on my knees.

  In the distance, the sound of approaching sirens.

  Tarc had pulled off his now sodden T-shirt. I couldn’t help casting a glance at the ink peeking out of the low-slung waistband of his jeans. I could only see part of it, but I recognised the bare outline of the symbol for the Bláithín. His hidden tattoo.

  Tarc caught me staring at his ink and my cheeks burned. He turned away from me, taking a dry hoodie that Laney held out to him. He seemed almost embarrassed, like he didn’t want me to see it.

  ‘This will break Cassa’s heart,’ Laney said. There were tears in her eyes as she watched the last flames burn. The garden was a mess. Her beautiful flowers, the carefully tended plants were replaced by an ugly cropped black. ‘It’s taken her years to grow it.’

  In silence, we watched water vanquish flame. My clothes were drenched and clung to my skin. And, as the last of the fire went out, I realised the buzzing I’d felt so strongly the night of Cassa’s party, the buzzing of a powerful nemeton, had been entirely quenched too.

  In the afternoon, after the medical that Cassa insisted I take, I found her standing over the charred remains of her garden. There was nothing that told; her face was without expression and her body appeared relaxed. But she was devastated. It was precisely because she cared so much that she wouldn’t let it show. I knew that beneath her controlled surface, something was simmering. I could almost feel it, the strength of her emotion.

  ‘I’m sorry about your garden, Cassa. I know it was special to you.’

  She nodded. ‘It was. But I will grow it again. Better than it was before.’

  ‘It will take time.’

  ‘Most things that matter do,’ she said, and her voice was suddenly fierce. ‘I can choose to be the kind of person who just burns and that’s the end.’ I had a horrible image of a wicker man. ‘Or I can choose to rise from the ashes.’

  ‘I suppose.’ I wasn’t convinced it was that simple. Sometimes you just burned whether you liked it or not.

  ‘I want to make you an offer,’ Cassa said, looking at the flower bed where we’d spoken on the night of her party, the smell of fire and wet, burned plants still pungent. ‘I want you to stay on here at Harkness House. You can work part-time at first, while you study, if that’s what you want.’ And again, her easy words belied that passion I’d sensed before. ‘You’ll get a good salary, paid tuition.’

  ‘What would I have to do?’

  ‘Learn about Arabella,’ she said. Then she looked at me, with the burned garden behind her, a hint of fire in her eyes.

  She was offering more than just a job.

  ‘More than you dreamed possible.’ She left it there, the words heavy with meaning.

  Before I could respond, she held up a hand. ‘Don’t answer just yet. Think about it.’

  Then she turned, leaving me alone in the burned garden.

  I left Harkness House early, wearing clothes borrowed from Cassa’s wardrobe; I smelled of smoke and her perfume. I moved from bus, to road, to Luas tram as if in a dream.

  I was at the Luas stop when I saw her, my ghostly Sorcha, her yellow oilskin ill-suited to the sunny afternoon. There was something almost inevitable about it, like she was waiting for me. The flow of people closed around her and then opened again. And still she was there, wearing her blue flower dress and yellow raincoat. Ladybird earrings in her ears. She looked across at me, a horrible little smile on her pale face. She raised a hand.

  Making my way towards her, I kept my eye on her as best I could. But I knew that by the time I got there she would be gone.

  There was no sign of the bright raincoat. I didn’t bother looking. There wasn’t any point. The realisation had been a slow dawning: the figure from my milk dragon vision had stepped into the world. The Sorcha with the dead eyes and wan skin wasn’t the real, breathing, living Sorcha. It was my worst manifestation of my mother, brought into being by overusing my talent. Made stronger, more fleshed out every time I lost myself in a picture, until I could no longer tell what was real. Where waking life was invaded with dream creatures.

  This was how it would drive you mad.

  At home, I entered the cottage in the middle of an argument. Sibéal was furious and, hands on hips, she was staring down Maeve. The smell of honey-baked ham filled the kitchen, its sweetness at odds with the mood.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I murmured to Smith, who was busying himself in the kitchen. I’d never see him peel carrots with such fierce determination before.

  ‘Domestic turmoil.’ He held up his hands. ‘I don’t get in the middle of two strong-willed women.’

  ‘You’re such a hypocrite,’ Sibéal was saying. ‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell it like it is.’

  ‘It must be kept a secret.’ Maeve’s face was flushed and pinched. ‘You can’t just go announcing yourself as an augur in Kilshamble, even if the judge kids at school piss you off. I’ve explained this many times before.’

  ‘All these secrets,’ Sibéal spoke with distaste. ‘I don’t understand why you need to have all these secrets. It’s like you’re ashamed of who we are. Of what we’d do to protect ourselves.’

  ‘I know that the secretive nature of this grove frustrates you,’ Maeve said, her voice low and calm. ‘But with it we have stealth on our side. You should know that by now. When we act, they won’t even see it coming.’

  I watched Maeve and Sibéal facing each other as they argued. For all that they looked different they were so alike. Suddenly, for the first time in ages, I felt a kind of peace. There was something comforting and familiar about Maeve and Sibéal’s argument. I’d seen versions of it more times than I could remember. Watching them squabble put me back in my place in the world. The smell of the ham crisping in the oven. Smith butchering carrots with a blunt knife. This was where I belonged. I could almost forget about Cassa and her obsession, the fire that had burned down the walled garden. I could almost forget about the doll that moved around the cottage. About Tarc, my mother. My father, from his proud line of killers.

  Almost.

  ‘I think Cassa wants me to metamorphose into a flower,’ I blurted. ‘And there was a fire in her walled garden today.’

  Sibéal and Maeve abandoned their argument mid-sentence. Smith looked u
p, knife in hand. Sibéal narrowed her eyes, ‘Whose clothes are you wearing?’

  ‘Here, pass that cloth,’ I said to Smith, ignoring Sibéal’s question.

  ‘Wren,’ Maeve said. ‘That’s big news.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, does it?’ I said, lifting a hot heavy pot that smelled of boiled pig, trying not to gag. ‘That metamorphosis is never going to happen. We’re nearly done. Soon our nemeta will be regenerated and we’ll be able to do all the rituals we need.’ I emptied the hot water from the pot, steam filling the air. ‘Besides, it isn’t real. A girl can’t turn into a flower. Can she?’

  ‘There is no proof of it ever having happened,’ Smith said.

  ‘Magic is about design. It’s a spider spinning her web,’ Maeve said. ‘Even for judges it’s a slow, deliberate orchestration. It’s not clicking your fingers and suddenly there are dragons and flower girls.’

  Putting down the pot, I went towards the passage.

  ‘Dinner soon,’ Smith called.

  ‘Not hungry, thanks.’

  ‘Wren, you have to eat,’ Maeve said.

  ‘Later, OK?’

  ‘Wren,’ Sibéal said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think you should do it, the metamorphosis. You’d be crazy not to.’

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. Ordinary was Sibéal’s most damning insult. But it was the detached way she spoke to me that bothered me. The coldness that had touched our friendship ever since I started at Harkness House.

  ‘That’s not the plan,’ I said, looking at Maeve and Smith, who were pretending to be absorbed in taking out plates and pouring water into glasses. ‘Is it?’

  ‘No, honey,’ Maeve said and glanced up. ‘That’s not the plan.’

  I turned to go, but her voice stopped me.

  ‘Only, don’t refuse just yet. It might work in our favour to keep her wanting something from you.’

  ‘Any idea where that stone is, Maeve?’ I said, not turning to look at her.