The Wren Hunt

by Mary Watson

  ‘How is it that I have only known you two months?’ he said, almost in wonder.

  ‘You don’t really know me that well.’ I dropped my face, letting my hair fall to hide my shame as he took my coat.

  ‘I want to know you.’ And the look on his face, the longing there. It startled me, the ferocity of his desire to know me.

  My mother left when I was a baby. The words were at the tip of my tongue, fighting to be let out. I was named Wren for the druid bird. My first memory is of trees. I am an augur with a spinny eye, which is a curse, not a blessing. I am here to steal from you. I love peanut butter and running in the woods, but never with the boys behind me.

  I’d never wanted to tell anyone the story of me as much as I did just then. I wanted to offer that to him. To stop the traitorous words, I kissed him, pushing him down on the couch. I sat, one leg either side of him.

  ‘I like peanut butter.’ Inadequate, but it was all I could give.

  ‘Peanut butter,’ he said, touching my face as if I’d told him my deepest secret.

  I kissed him again, my hands exploring his hard arms, running up to his shoulders, then inching between the couch and his back.

  ‘Bleak, abandoned industrial areas,’ he offered in return. ‘Broken windows in forgotten factories.’

  His hands were warm through my thin cardigan, my black tights.

  ‘Really loud songs with swear words in them,’ I said, feeling his laughter in his shoulders, on my mouth.

  ‘Grey hair. Lined skin.’

  ‘The swirling colours in marbles.’

  ‘Purple skies. October.’

  He flipped us around, so I was lying down with him on top.

  ‘The snitch of Velcro pulling.’ The tips of his fingers at the hem of my tank.

  We kissed, exchanging details about ourselves. We matched each thing discovered with a new touch, growing closer. Until, ‘My mother left when I was a baby.’

  My words were a whisper, my hands on his skin. I wasn’t sure he heard them.

  But suddenly his attention was taken by something beyond me. He moved away, saying, ‘David.’

  I sat up, looking through the window, and there he was, coming down the path towards the cottage. I was grabbing my cardigan when Tarc spoke, ‘Where did you get that?’

  He stared at my arm, at the puckered skin from my stone snakebite.

  ‘Accident. Got careless while poisoning weeds a couple of years ago.’

  ‘An accident in a garden?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  Marked by the garden. I knew that’s what he was thinking.

  ‘You don’t believe it, do you?’ I said.

  ‘No.’ But there was a shadow in his eyes.

  David turned the door handle. The latch was on.

  ‘Gallagher,’ he pounded on the door. I heard the clink of keys.

  ‘I don’t want to see him.’ I didn’t want him to see me. He’d take one look and know we hadn’t been playing Monopoly.

  ‘This way.’ Tarc pulled me down the passage and into his room. ‘I’ll drive you home when he leaves.’

  ‘Gallagher,’ I heard David calling from the living room. Leaving me inside, he shut the door.

  In his room I could smell that indefinable scent of Tarc. There were books on the desk. Photographs beside the bed.

  The stone. It was possible that Tarc, as Cassa’s security, kept the stone in his room. I examined the desk, the table beside the bed. I ran my eye over his bookshelf, knowing it was a shitty thing to do after what we’d shared.

  The door opened slightly, the draught running through the house probably did it. I went to shut it.

  ‘The old power station?’ Tarc was saying.

  ‘It’s supposed to be a surprise.’ David’s laugh sounded hollow.

  Quietly closing the door, I went back to the bookshelf. Something there had caught my eye. It was on the bottom shelf, under a pile of books. The symbol for the Bláithín was small and clear. Pulling it out, I saw a case made of brown leather. I paused, reluctant. But Maeve had seen the symbol in the clouds; what if the stone was in here?

  Snapping the latches on either side of the case, it opened. Laid in cream silk was a set of sharp utensils. They looked old-fashioned: there was a double-bladed instrument, a sickle, a wooden handle with a sharp brass tip, a small saw, a strange object with a large flat half-moon blade. A hand spade, which I picked up, feeling the hard steel. I recognised the forerunner to garden shears with its sharp pointed edges. And three knives with carvings on the handles. There were indents beside the knives, suggesting two had been removed.

  Smith had told me about pruning tools, how they were used for murder and torture. And if there were pruning tools in his bedroom, that meant Tarc was from a family of gardeners.

  I picked up the small card slipped into the side. ‘For Tarc, on passing your exams. These were your father’s and now they are yours, that you may follow his path as Raker. With love, Cassa.’

  Not just from a family with a history of gardeners, Tarc was a gardener. A brutal killer from the warrior elite.

  Worse, he was meant to be the Raker.

  Smith was wrong, the gardeners hadn’t disbanded. They were very much around. And, very likely, I was alone in a house with two of them.

  ‘What are you doing, Wren?’ Tarc’s voice was tight as he stood in the doorway.

  I turned to face him, the spade still in my hand.

  He stepped closer, as if he was the one holding the sharp instrument. His face was impassive, but taking everything in. He was seconds away from figuring it out. That I was his enemy. That I had lied to him all this time.

  ‘Stay back.’ I waved the spade at him. ‘Why do you have these?’ I wanted him to tell me that Cassa had insisted. That he’d hidden them on the bottom shelf because he couldn’t bear the sight of them.

  ‘They belonged to my father. And to his father before him. And his before him. Now they’re mine.’

  Any hope I’d had dissolved with those words.

  ‘You hurt people?’

  ‘I protect.’ The look on his face suggested that sometimes they were the same thing. Tarc stepped towards me. ‘You were looking through my things. Why?’

  My hand clenched around the spade.

  ‘Put it down, Wren. You don’t understand what those are.’

  ‘I know. I know you trained as a killer. That you mean to be Raker. And I know who you’ll end up hurting.’ I couldn’t hide the tremor in my voice. ‘Here’s your chance. You have the enemy in your bedroom. Do your worst.’

  And he finally understood.

  He looked utterly, utterly crushed.

  I saw disgust flit over his features when he realised what I was. How I had lied. Just for a few seconds, he let me see how he really felt. The disappointment, the sadness. The longing for what might have been otherwise. Then it seemed like he packed his emotions away.

  ‘You’re one of them.’ He shook his head with a bitter laugh. ‘David warned me that something wasn’t right. I refused to see it.’

  Another step closer.

  ‘Was this,’ he gestured disdainfully between me and him, ‘part of whatever it is you’re doing here?’

  And closer.

  ‘I told you to stop.’ I held the spade in front of me. My hands on the hilt were shaking.

  ‘Was it you who leaked the locations of our nemeta?’ He prowled towards me. ‘Are you the reason they’ve been damaged?’

  ‘I would never allow damage to a nemeton,’ I gasped, sounding ridiculously uptight. I raised the spade a little higher. ‘I don’t even know where your nemeta are.’

  ‘Put it down, Wren.’

  ‘Stay back,’ I said again. But he came closer.

  I tried to find the Tarc I’d come to know over the last two months, the Tarc with whom I’d laughed and talked and kissed. I could still feel the ghost pricks of stubble against my chin.

  But in his place was this hard, cold person who would one day be Rake
r. He reached for me and I felt like that girl. The one who stumbled through the forest with boys at her back. The victim.

  So I lashed out, meaning to warn him off. But, despite everything, he must have trusted me, because he stepped forward instead of away, and the sharp edge of the spade hit him on the temple. Blood trickled down his face. He touched it in disbelief. I could barely believe it myself.

  ‘I told you to stay back,’ I lowered my trembling hand. Then made myself hold it up again, poised to strike.

  But before I could move he tackled me, taking me down to the ground. He grabbed at the spade, and I pushed out from under him, rolling on top. He flipped me over, pinning my legs with his.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said. Holding my wrists with one hand, he tried to prise the spade out of my hand with the other. As his fingers unpeeled mine from the spade I tightened my grip. I wrenched my arm away and whacked him again. It was a weak strike, but it allowed me to push him off. I got up and ran for the door. I made two steps before he pounced at me from an awkward angle, hanging on to me around my waist while I strained towards the door.

  ‘Let me go,’ I shouted.

  I felt him freeze, then his arms released their hold. As he let go, I felt myself lifted out of his grip and swung across the room. The spade clanked to the ground. I saw David’s face before I hit the wall, my jaw catching the edge of a shelf. His boots pounded the floor towards me.

  ‘David, no,’ I heard Tarc say.

  As he approached his face was a mask of calm anger, and yet I sensed that David himself was missing. It was as if something else had overtaken him.

  He raised a fist. But before he could strike Tarc shoved him away, pinning him face down on the ground.

  ‘David.’ His voice was hoarse. ‘Come back.’

  My head fell against the wall, aghast at what I had done. Blood streamed from Tarc’s temple where I’d hit him. From down the passage came the sound of footsteps.

  Ryan appeared and surveyed the scene in Tarc’s bedroom. ‘Canty called. They’re moving tonight.’

  Taking advantage of their distraction, I got up and ran. I wrenched open the lane gate and sprinted down the road, trembling as I pulled my phone from my pocket. My bag was inside the office, which would be locked and alarmed by now. I pulled out the emergency tenner Maeve insisted I keep in my phone case and began to make my way home. It was wet outside, with heavy rain that reminded me of my first days at Harkness House.

  At the cottage, Maeve and Smith were waiting, anxious.

  ‘What happened?’ Maeve cried when she saw the bruise on my face. ‘And don’t tell me it was dreams.’ Her voice was fierce.

  ‘They know I’m an augur. I’ve fucked it up, Smith.’ I let out a ragged breath. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Smith pulled me, sodden clothes and all, into his arms. For the first time in ages, I felt tears start. But it wasn’t because of the plan or the months of deception. I wanted to cry because of the way Tarc had looked at me when he realised what I was. But I couldn’t cry for that. Not when he was a gardener. Swallowing hard, I wiped the tears away.

  ‘I found Tarc’s pruning tools.’

  I sat on a stool beside the fire, feeling the heat warm my face.

  Looking into the flames, I told them that Birchwood had to be the gardener training school. That far from defunct, the gardeners were very much around. If the rumour of judges from Birchwood coming to Dublin was true, a bunch of gardeners were on their way over. And that likely meant trouble.

  Smith touched my arm. From the resigned look on his face, I guessed this wasn’t exactly news.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I said. ‘That they were still around?’

  ‘Because you were so upset about your father,’ he said. ‘And because I didn’t want you worrying about soldiers who posed zero threat to you, when the real danger was always Cassa.’

  ‘How did it happen?’ Maeve crouched beside me. ‘Where did you find his tools?’

  My shame was as intense as the fire at the side of my face.

  ‘They were in his house.’ I stood, my wet clothes hardening uncomfortably. ‘Can we talk tomorrow?’

  ‘His house?’ Maeve said.

  ‘Another time.’ Smith was firm. ‘Wren’s had an awful shock. I’ll put on the heat upstairs and you get dry. This can wait.’

  I stayed in my room, where I could hear their agitated murmuring. I heard cars arriving, doors closing as people came and went late into the night. In the dark, I lay in my bed, shivering. Nothing could warm me up.

  I ignored the soft knocks at my door as Aisling tried to lure me out with promises of hot tea, rich gravy and sweet cakes. Simon whispered at the door, his voice both comforting and safe. But it wasn’t him I wanted.

  I pulled the covers over my head, burrowing into the darkness.

  I’d let everyone down. All their intricate plans. Two months at Harkness House and for nothing. Eventually, I fell into broken sleep, weighed down by the shame of my weakness. By the burden of my failure.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Pinned to that tree

  Since the game, my body knits itself into something different. I am changed. My skin glows and my eyes shine. Something like power surges through my veins.

  AdC

  The next three days were awful. I resisted the urge to hide in my room, away from Sibéal and Maeve’s grim disappointment. Instead, I made myself work. I cleaned the cottage, scrubbing tiles and toilets and floors like it would atone for my lapse in judgement.

  I would not think about Tarc. I wouldn’t think about how he’d kissed me, or the feel of his skin and muscles beneath my searching hands. Not the shape of him above me, his face as he looked at me on his grey couch. I would not think about how the boy I liked too much was going to become the Raker, in charge of soldiers tasked with killing augurs at the slightest provocation. I didn’t dare linger on how he, more than my family, had cautioned me about Cassa’s ritual. Had worried about the risk to me.

  He and Aisling.

  ‘I think I can see my reflection.’ Aisling stood over me as I washed the dust-covered skirting in the living room.

  I kept on scrubbing and didn’t realise I was crying until I tasted the tears.

  ‘Don’t cry, Wren.’ She slunk down beside me, not minding the water I’d sloshed. She pulled me into her arms.

  ‘I’m so glad you found a way out,’ she whispered in my ear. ‘I’m glad it turned out this way.’

  ‘I let everyone down,’ I said.

  ‘It should never have been all on your shoulders.’

  ‘But now we won’t get the third stone, and our nemeta will go to shite and we’ll end up like the bards.’

  ‘We’ll find another way,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell Mam, but Simon and I have an idea.’

  I sat up straight. ‘Your last idea was a disaster.’

  ‘Shhh, there’s nothing to worry about. We haven’t decided anything.’

  A short, sharp knock sounded at the door. I was due to report back to the circle that morning. Whatever happened, I wouldn’t lie. Maeve knew I’d been in Tarc’s house. I wasn’t looking forward to clarifying that really I meant his bedroom. Or why I was in his house at all. My gut twisted as I thought about admitting this to the circle. To Smith.

  ‘Fix your face,’ Aisling said. ‘Don’t let them see you cry.’

  But it wasn’t my summons to the circle meeting. I opened the door to find Tarc standing there. He was wearing black cargos and what looked like a fitted waxed jacket with an insignia on the sleeve. The symbol for the Bláithín.

  I guessed there was nothing to hide any more.

  He didn’t come in, it would mean too much. His eye flicked over the small spider on the upper inside door frame. The hard line of his jaw as he looked back to me tore something inside.

  ‘Cassa wants to see you.’ He was civil, the anger from a few days ago had dissipated. ‘She’s here in Kilshamble.’

  Aisling hovered behind me.


  ‘I don’t like this, Wren. You don’t have to go.’

  Tarc cast a disdainful look at her. ‘You don’t think much of us, do you?’

  ‘Won’t bother to answer that one.’ She gave him her sweetest smile.

  ‘Ash,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to skulk away and hide.’ I moved to get my coat. ‘This shouldn’t take long.’

  ‘I don’t trust them.’

  Tarc shrugged. ‘I won’t hurt her.’ He sounded almost bored.

  Aisling stared at him. ‘Yeah, that I might believe.’

  My coat and boots on, I gave her a quick hug.

  ‘If I don’t hear from you in an hour,’ she said, ‘I’m sending in the troops.’

  ‘Yeah, good luck with that.’ Tarc murmured, barely audible. But, along with his uniform, it reminded me what he was. And how much stronger they were.

  It was quiet as we marched along the path.

  ‘Cassa’s at Arabella’s cottage,’ he spoke over his shoulder.

  We walked in silence through the woods. He said nothing, seemingly more interested in the line of trees and listening to the birdcalls.

  Beneath the trees, he’d once said. But whatever trust we’d shared was shattered.

  How afraid I’d been of the judges and their punishments. How troubled I’d been about David’s blood fine. And now I knew that for me there could be no punishment worse than this. More brutal than his blazing anger was Tarc’s indifference. As if denying anything had grown between us over the last months. He looked at me like I was nothing to him.

  I squared my shoulders and hardened my heart.

  ‘They’re here.’ I heard Laney’s words travel down the slope as we approached the ruined cottage.

  Inside the broken walls I saw Cassa. Outside the ruin, Laney and David stood a short distance away. I’d expected him to show some kind of triumph. Smug that he’d been right to question me. But David seemed lost inside himself, barely looking up.

  ‘Cassa,’ I said, and stepped into the ruin. There were fresh flowers in the corner. Peonies.

  ‘Wren,’ she said. ‘You came.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I took a few steps towards her. ‘I should have told you who I was.’