The Wren Hunt

by Mary Watson

  The journal half read, I put it down and got out of the bath. The game in the woods. That’s what she called it. I dried myself, still mulling it over, trying to make sense of the non-chronological order. I was more than a little unnerved by Arabella’s strange cravings.

  Wrapped in a towel, I went to my bedroom to find a white dress. There was only the old one that had once belonged to Sorcha.

  Maeve had said to keep my mind focused. There was one purpose to this reading: I was looking for faster ways to forge binds to the nemeta. Maeve had warned me that if there were too many questions crowding my mind, the egg reading would be confused. I had to stay clear. Push away unnecessary thoughts. I had to focus on finding a faster way to bind to the nemeta, that was all.

  Purified and dressed in white, I headed out into the twilight to read the egg.

  In the trees behind the cottage, I placed the bowl with the egg on a stump and burned the incense. Waving my arms, I walked three times anticlockwise, as demanded by the instructions. Feeling the cold wind through the dress, I took a deep glug of sherry.

  Three times clockwise, my arms swaying exuberantly. A jaunty shake in my step. I might as well enjoy it.

  Opening the vial that Maeve had prepared, I drank it down. It tasted as bad as it smelled. The next step was ‘letting go’, so I twirled and danced between the trees. Raising my arms high, I began the invocation of the ancestors that Maeve had written out for me.

  I drew the knife along my palm then opened my hand over the bowl. Blood dripped into it. Mumbling the rest of the words, I picked up the egg and cracked it. I didn’t understand the Old Irish but Maeve had assured me it was a call to my ancestors to guide me. I hoped that I hadn’t accidently called a plague upon myself by mispronouncing one of the unfamiliar words.

  The yolk spread and mixed with my blood. Maeve had warned not to go all spinny eye on the egg, but to read the position of the yolk and blood in relation to the bowl, the direction it faced, how it ran or glooped, much as the ancient augurs had read the flight patterns of birds.

  Staring down into the bowl, I began to feel light-headed. My hand was still bleeding. Egg white, yolk and blood swirled at the bottom. I tried to read the slobbery muck, but it was just an egg mixed with blood.

  It was nearly dark and I was getting nothing. I should probably have had a practice round with a normal egg. I reached in the flowery bag for my Lego Wonder Woman key ring that shone light from her feet. Maeve had said five minutes to get a reading. Otherwise it was a dud. I pointed Wonder Woman into the bowl and stared harder.

  ‘Is there a faster way to bind to nemeta?’ I whispered the question again and again.

  And felt myself slipping. I tried to stop it but hunger, the stink of incense and the loss of blood meant I had little resistance. The strange drink combined with the sherry had made my head foggy. I tried to examine them separately: the egg yolk, the stringy goo of the chalaza. The blood trailing through the yolk. But as I clung on, I could feel my grasp slipping further. There was a small shard of shell in the bowl, stabbing the centre of the yolk.

  When it hit, it was harder than any other I’d experienced. Bliss and despair rolled through me in an awful mix.

  The trees around me receded and I could see a lamp, the lines of an armchair behind it. I was screaming, my voice hoarse. A tangle of dread was fixed in my chest. I saw Tarc with a gun. The trees and the ghost living room blended together, the room with its furniture now superimposed on the woods. There was a look of determination on his face. It was Tarc, and I barely recognised him. Cold and unyielding, he looked straight ahead, ignoring my screams. The gun in his hand was pointed at Smith.

  And then it all turned to black.

  Crumbled on the forest floor, the living room had receded. But I could still see Tarc in front of me, as if he’d been snatched out of the vision and brought into the woods.

  ‘I’ve got you,’ Tarc said, helping me up.

  I wanted to say something, but my teeth were chattering. Instead, I looked away. All around was the evidence of what I had been doing. The bowl with blood and yolk. My cut hand hastily bound with a piece torn from his shirt. I reached for the bowl, the knife and the incense. I couldn’t pick them up because I was shaking too much. I hadn’t felt cold during the ritual but it hit me now with fierce, juddering shivers. A vicious pain sliced through my head and it took everything not to sink to the forest floor and hold on to it. Tarc took off his hoodie and draped it around me. In silence, he picked up the things I’d left on the ground. Drawing me to his side, we walked towards the cottage.

  I’d failed Maeve. I didn’t get the answer she needed.

  At the edge of the woods, at the small path that led behind Maeve’s garden to Smith’s, we heard a voice in the near darkness.

  ‘That’s far enough. I’ll take it from here.’

  Maeve stood there, short and dumpy, yet strangely magnificent. She wore her puffy winter coat with its line of fake fur that hid her curls and her face was blotted out by the light from the cottage behind her.

  ‘She shouldn’t have been alone,’ Tarc said.

  ‘She’s not alone.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said to him. I still didn’t understand why he was there or how he’d found me. ‘It’s better if you go.’

  He looked at me like he was fighting back words.

  Then he said, ‘Cassa sent for you. It’s time. Wickerlight will happen tonight.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  The end of the world

  Elizabeth, I am sorry. I wish you could hear me now.

  AdC

  I was aware of Tarc’s gaze on me every now and then as we drove out of the quiet road and away from Carraig Cottage.

  I leaned against the headrest, my eyes shut, hoping it would ease my raging head. But when I closed my eyes, all I could see was Tarc aiming a gun at Smith.

  ‘Are we going back to the city?’ I said.

  ‘The ritual will take place here in Kilshamble.’

  It made sense that it would happen in the ruined cottage. I didn’t mind that so much. I liked the cottage, I felt at peace there. I closed my eyes again.

  After a minute, Tarc spoke. ‘What did you see back there in the woods?’

  ‘The end of the world.’ I kept my eyes shut.

  I could sense that he wanted to ask more questions. I could feel his curiosity about what I’d been doing, about augur ways.

  The car stopped, and when I opened my eyes I saw we were parked on Kilshamble’s main street, near the church. As I climbed out of the car and looked across the road, I saw Cassa and Laney ahead.

  ‘No,’ I said, staring at the village green. The old shambles. ‘Not there.’

  Tarc looked at me. ‘The old slaughter grounds are exceptionally fertile.’ His voice sounded dull and suddenly, even though he was right there with me, I really missed him.

  He went to the boot and swung a large duffel bag over his shoulder. Down the road, another car approached.

  Cassa was standing on the green, her face turned up to the full moon. I couldn’t see the colour of the grass, but I didn’t need to. I remembered its vividness. The faint metallic smell.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Tarc said.

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to end up in a cottage in the woods. I didn’t want to end up haunting gardens at midnight and trailing my coat through the muck.

  The approaching car stopped on the main street.

  ‘Who else is coming?’ I said. I’d thought it would be just Cassa, Laney and Tarc.

  ‘David,’ Tarc said. ‘Cillian. Brian and Ryan.’ He shifted. ‘All the newest gardeners.’

  I looked down at Sorcha’s white dress beneath Tarc’s hoodie. Virgin sacrifice duty. I looked at Cassa on the green, the boys tumbling out of the car. Their laughter boomed across the green. I remembered the feel of crumbs of soil in Cassa’s pocket.

  ‘I can’t do this.’

  David and Cillian stood beside their car, David looking in our direction. He stoo
d there, legs apart and folded his arms across his thick torso.

  ‘Tarc,’ I said, keeping my eye on the boys. ‘Your snake tattoo. Why two heads?’ The words tumbled out in a hushed urgency.

  ‘The mark of the gardener warns there is always danger in the garden. The forked head suggests things might not be as they seem.’

  ‘All the gardeners defend the Bláithín, but the Raker is her special guard. So you, or David, or maybe one of the others, would be the protector? And I would be the fragile flower?’

  ‘Some might see it that way.’

  ‘Sod that,’ I said, and he almost laughed.

  ‘I told you it would change things.’

  ‘I can’t do this,’ I said again. Across the way, Cassa and Laney were conferring, her fair head leaning towards Laney’s white-purple. They were deep in discussion. The boys were on the green, moving towards us. Towards me. David kept his eyes on me as he advanced. Cillian at his heels.

  And I knew what Cassa’s ritual would be like. We’d been there before: in the ghost housing estate the moment before they caught me. Trapped in the forest.

  Doing this ritual, I would be passive and stuck. The boys would leer, and afterwards they would grab a beer and the last, unfinished wren hunt would finally be complete. David would fulfil the promise he made when he took my hair: I would be defeated. I would submit.

  ‘You should run,’ Tarc said suddenly. And I knew that he saw it too. ‘Get out of here. Before they get you.’

  I looked up at him. There was something gentle and beautiful about the way his eyes fell upon me, searching my face.

  ‘Run. Go to the cottage.’

  I didn’t need to be told a third time.

  Shrugging out of his hoodie, I set off through the main street. An exhilarating freedom worked its way through my veins as my Converse pounded the asphalt.

  ‘Stop her,’ I heard Cassa shout.

  And then I heard them behind me. First, the running feet in the distance. Then the whistling call. David and the boys were on the hunt.

  I left the road and went into the woods and in between the trees. If I stayed off the path; they would have a harder time finding me.

  I pushed on, going faster. I felt a stitch tear through my side but I couldn’t stop. I would get home first. I would outrun them.

  As I ran, I reached that point of near bliss, where my body no longer felt anything. Not the piercing pain in my head, not my burning lungs.

  And I knew this pattern, one that went beyond the meanness of boys or hostility towards augurs. The chase had always been part of something bigger. Like a spider spinning her web and knowing intuitively how to make that perfect shape.

  In all those years of running, I’d read the future through a pattern. When it repeats, it gains significance. All the other hunts had been rehearsals. They had happened only in anticipation of – in preparation for – this chase.

  The boys didn’t matter. They never had. It was my run towards freedom, my acting to ensure my safety that mattered now. Tarc had been wrong: it was not doing the ritual but refusing to do it that changed things. I’d been persuaded to do so much that I didn’t want to, and they all added up: stealing information, breaking into the archive, telling a hundred little white lies. But like a slow water leak, every small drip led to irrevocable damage.

  Caught up in my thoughts, I didn’t see the boulder until it was too late. I was running at full speed when I tripped and went sprawling to the ground, smacking my ribs against a large rock. Tumbling down the slope, I rolled over stones and sticks. The sharp edge of a twig pierced my calf. My face and arms were scraped by the floor of the forest, almost as if it were offended by my refusal. I felt Sorcha’s dress ripping before I came to a stop. I sat up, stunned.

  Slowly, I picked myself up. It took almost a minute before the dizziness subsided. I started jogging slowly, feebly. My ribs were aching something fierce. I’d come back to my body with a bang. And it hurt like never before. I paused, feeling the air claw into my lungs. My legs shook, refusing to take my weight. I clung on to a tree.

  When they caught me it was almost a relief. I couldn’t run any more. I’d pushed my body as far as I could. But during the chase, I’d found the clarity I needed to say no to Cassa, to Smith, to Maeve. I’d found the strength to stop running. I knew how to stop being hunted.

  ‘All right,’ I panted. ‘I’ll come back. I’ll talk to Cassa.’

  But David launched himself at me, tackling me to the ground. He knocked the air out of me, his weight on my aching ribs.

  ‘Get off,’ I said, my hand, still wrapped in Tarc’s torn shirt, loosely grabbing on to a stone.

  But David didn’t seem to hear me. He didn’t move and I lay trapped beneath him.

  ‘Get off,’ I yelled again, smashing the rock – it was bigger than I thought – hard against his face.

  He fell over, grunting and swearing. I stood up slowly, still holding the rock in my hand, and shouted at the others.

  ‘I told you so many times. Just leave me alone.’ My voice echoed clear through the woods. The boys watched as I walked away.

  Dropping the bloodied rock, I limped through the woods.

  No one was home. The lights were on and I let myself in through the back, calling for Smith.

  In the kitchen, I stood at the sink and chugged down two glasses of water before hearing the front door open. A cardigan hung on the back of a chair and I pulled it over the torn dress.

  ‘I’m in here,’ I called, smoothing my hair and wiping at the dress with a tea towel.

  Still dabbing at it, I went into the living room. But it was Tarc, not Smith, who’d come in. He waited there, the shape and size of him incongruous with the room. I was used to seeing him in the wide, bright halls of Harkness House. Tarc seemed wrong in this room, with its faded wallpaper and cluttered bookshelves. From her spot on the wall, Sorcha smiled at him.

  ‘I meant the ruined cottage,’ he said, breathless, as if he’d run all the way. ‘I looked for you at Arabella’s cottage.’

  ‘Was Cassa very upset?’

  He came towards me, examining Sorcha’s torn dress. The graze on my face. My mussed-up hair.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I fell.’ I turned away.

  He moved closer, until he was in my line of vision. Forcing me to look at him.

  ‘You can’t be here,’ I said, feeling that rise of panic even though we were alone. ‘My grandfather.’

  But Tarc’s attention had shifted. He was looking past me, at Smith’s war table.

  ‘Wren, what is this?’ His voice was steady and yet I heard the alarm there.

  ‘That’s just my grandfather’s hobby. He’s not really planning a big war.’

  ‘Hobby?’

  ‘The war table. It’s just a game.’

  Hands on my shoulders, he turned me round to face the war table. The rivers, hills, woods and farms were gone. No soldiers, no tanks. In their place was a long, thick rope looped into the Daragishka Knot. At the centre of the first loop was a smooth, oval river stone. In the second, a rough mountain rock. The third was empty. Another smooth stone right beside it.

  He turned to me and there was such gentleness in his eyes. ‘You don’t know, do you?’

  ‘I’ve never seen this before.’ I said, moving towards the table. ‘Why would they put it out here?’ On the top side of the knot was a sprig of dried meadowsweet, on the left a sprig of whitethorn, and opposite, the new bud of an alder tree. At the core, the lucky acorn that Tarc had given to me.

  ‘They’re forming the Daragishka Knot.’

  ‘But we don’t have the stones.’

  Tarc brushed the hair from my face. ‘To make the Daragishka Knot you need a stone from a river, one from a mountain and one from the sea.’

  ‘No, that’s not how it works,’ I said patiently. Couldn’t blame judges for not knowing augur traditions.

  But Tarc was touching the first stone. ‘The only thing that matters in
forming the Daragishka Knot is naming the stones. The first is Betrayal.’

  And I saw that the stone had been marked in Ogham. Even my rudimentary grasp of the alphabet could make out that ‘Betrayal’ was a very possible translation.

  ‘Then Sacrifice.’ He traced the lines on the second stone. ‘S, A, C …’

  ‘No. You’ve got it all wrong.’

  ‘Naming the stones can only happen through action,’ he continued. ‘They have to be big gestures. Betrayal, sacrifice, surrender on an epic scale. The betrayal has to cut deep. The sacrifice has to hurt. The surrender has to be a leap into the unknown. Otherwise it won’t work. And the bigger the gesture, the more power it has.’

  ‘Maybe that’s how it is for the judges, but it’s different for us. The Daragishka stones are named for the Crimson River that flows red on Hy-Breasil. Ruairí Ó Cróinín found them.’

  ‘No,’ Tarc said. ‘The Daragishka Knot is named for the river that flowed red with blood, where the Bláithín found her beloved dying after a battle. The Knot was formed when the Bláithín begged the forest for her lover’s life. In return, she had to sacrifice an augur soldier who was injured on the battlefield. She turned her back on her people and surrendered herself to the forest, where she lived as meadowsweet for three years.’

  ‘You’re confusing your myths with ours.’

  I looked back at the knot on the war table, trying to think how to begin explaining this to Tarc. I reached out a finger to the rope, then picked up the beach stone.

  ‘Wren, we should leave.’ Tarc was right behind me.

  ‘Leave? This is my home.’

  The front door pushed open and we both turned, startled.

  ‘What’s going on, Wren?’ I heard Maeve say. She came into the living room and hung her coat on the row of hooks. She stopped to take off her boots. But her movements were stiff and wooden. My eye fell on the acorn.