The Changeling (24 page)

Following the sound, Aoife turned through an opening between the trees, and ran along a grassy avenue rich with the sappy scent of the yews. Crimson yew berries and dry brown needles carpeted the ground. Every branch rustled with the sleek black bodies of the crows. After a short distance the track brought her out into a clearing, in the centre of which stood a circular house of clay and logs. To her disappointment it was clear that no one lived here – the thatched roof broken down and green with moss; thick brambles choking the door and every window. Just as she was turning to go, to seek help elsewhere, the dogs she had heard suddenly came bursting round the side of the empty building, a dozen of them, barking and howling in excitement.

They were as big as ponies, black with bone-white eyes.

Aoife fled straight for the nearest tree and scrambled up it as fast as she could, sending a cloud of crows screeching away. Only when she was at least five metres above the ground did she dare stop and look down. Her heart was pounding, her hands wet with sweat. But the enormous dogs didn’t even seem to have noticed her – they were racing around the ruined house, still barking and yelping, throwing themselves at the walls, darting their long pointed snouts through the windows, trying to leap up onto the rotting thatch. The windows were too small for them to squeeze through, but as she watched, the largest of the dogs discovered the door and started forcing its way through the mass of brambles. The others crowded in behind their leader, long tails extended tensely, narrow jaws dripping.

In the sudden silence, from inside the abandoned house came the high thin sound of a child weeping in terror.

For a very, very brief moment Aoife almost convinced herself it wasn’t a child at all, just a frightened animal. The huge dog pushed on into the house. Still Aoife stayed hidden in the foliage.

And then the scream.

‘
Mam! Help me!
’

Horror swept over her; ice poured into her blood.

‘
Mam! Help me!
’

She had to do something, quickly. Her veins were filling with power – but slowly, much too slowly. She leaned out of the tree, clinging tight to its swinging branches. ‘Oi, dog! Over here!’ Her throat was so dry, the cry came out as a squeak. She tried again. ‘
Dog!
’

The massive beast paused, its head still deep in the doorway, then shook itself and pressed on. The other dogs, pricking up their ears, turned to look up at her across the glade, baring needle-fine teeth in silent snarls, creamy foam dripping from their jaws. But then they closed in again around their leader, which had now disappeared up to its ribcage in the brambles.

A shriek from within. ‘
Mam! Mam!
’

Aoife was ready. She raised her hand, and a long dark blur cut straight through the air, across the clearing, engulfing the beast. But the monstrous dog did not go crashing to the ground. It barely reacted at all. It merely paused in the doorway, and its long tail flicked once, at the extreme end. The other eleven dogs seemed confused – trembling, twisting in circles, long black snouts swinging, bone-white eyes turning from the house to Aoife.

After a long, terrible pause filled only by the child’s screams, the lead dog seemed to come to a decision: it backed out of the brambles, swung round and paced across the clearing towards her. Its hind legs were longer than its front legs, giving it an odd crouching gait. Reaching her tree, it gazed up at her with gleaming white eyes and pulled its lips back into a crazed smile – its gums were bright red, thickly crowded with thin yellow teeth. Up close, Aoife could see that the beast’s long rough coat was not black but a very dark green. Even though she was already five metres above the ground, she hastily fled up another couple of branches. The dog placed its huge paws on the trunk of the tree and rose to a standing position, as tall as a bear. Its breath blasted up to her, stinking of rotten meat. It sprang, snapping for her bare feet, only just failing to catch them.

The child was screaming again. ‘
Mam! Help me!
’

The massive dog leaped up at Aoife one more time, jaws drooling, then dropped to the ground and strolled back towards the house.

‘
Mam!
’

Sweat broke out of Aoife’s every pore. She raised her hand but there was not yet enough power in her veins to fire again – even if it could have made any difference.

‘
Mam!
’

Her heart squeezed like a fist. She screamed – pathetically, even to her own ears, ‘
Down! Stay!
’

The dog paused, then sloped round in a tight circle, lay down and rested its nose on its paws, still gazing up at her with that crazed rabid smile. As if saying,
I’m in no hurry. I’m going to have my cake and eat it. First you. Then that little cupcake inside. Or maybe the other way round.

If she leaped as far as she could, and hit the ground running, maybe she could make it as far as the doorway, and if she could get inside, there might be some way for her to defend the child. Once she had made up her mind, the decision felt natural and surprisingly easy. No other child was going to die while she was around, like poor little Donal. Aoife crouched on the branch, feet together, knees bent.

The massive dog started to rise.

‘
Stay.
’

It lay down again, still with that dark, sardonic grin. The other dogs gathered around their leader, whimpering with uncertainty, many lying down themselves. A strange, calm, extraordinary thought floated through her head:
Farm dogs.
‘
Stay!
’ she screamed one more time, then clenched her fists and exploded out of the tree, right across the clearing, over the heads of the pack, and burst through the overgrown doorway into the house.

‘Hello? Hello?’

Aoife stood panting, listening. Silence. No dogs barking or trying to follow. She was breast-deep in a sea of blackberries, ferns, bindweed and nettles. The high windows in the cob walls were dense with briars, and only a few threads of dusty sunlight leaked through the rotted thatch, in which mice and small birds pattered.

‘Hello? Hello?’

Impossible to see where the child was hiding, in all the undergrowth and shadows. She stumbled a few steps further into the overgrown room, and in the darkness nearly stood on the child, crouched in a shaking ball among the briars, thin arms wrapped over its head – a little, soft, prickle-less hedgehog.

Aoife hunkered down, not sure whether to touch the little thing, or if that might terrify the poor creature further. What to say? She decided this changeling was probably a girl: she was dressed in a pink dressing gown with a Disney motif on the pocket from
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
. The dressing gown was very dirty.
Everything
about the child was dirty – hands, bedroom slippers, tangled short blonde hair. ‘Hello, sweetie.’

The child squeezed into an even tighter ball.

‘Don’t cry. I’m called Aoife and I’m not going to hurt you . . .’

Muffled against her knees, the child sobbed something inaudible.

‘What did you say, sweetie?’

The little girl said more distinctly in a shrill, trembling north Dublin accent, ‘Go away. I hate you. I’m not your sweetie, I’m my mam’s sweetie. I want my mam.’

‘All right, swee— honey. I’ll help you find her.’

‘They told me this way was home but the dogs came after me. I want to go home.’

‘Of course you do. Tell me where you live.’

‘In Dublin. In the house with the blue door . . .’ The child suddenly looked up at her with tearful eyes so icy blue they were near transparent. ‘
And I want my mam.
’

A deep emotion swept through Aoife’s body, like something essential had clicked home – but painfully, like a dislocated joint. Nearly crying herself, she held out her arms. ‘Come here to me, honey. I’ll take care of you.’

‘No, you’re a stranger – I don’t know you . . .’

‘But I know your mam, very well.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I do, and she gave me something to give you, so you would know I was telling the truth. You want to see it?’

The little girl wavered between hope and disbelief. ‘No . . . Is it Smarties? No.’

‘It’s not Smarties, it’s better.’

‘Ice cream?’

‘Wait . . .’ Aoife dipped her hand into her trackies pocket, and for a bad moment thought she’d lost it, but it had only been pushed deep into the corner. She fished it out and extended her palm.

The child peeped at it from behind her knees; then her blue eyes widened and she unravelled herself just enough to snatch at the locket. She flicked the gold heart open to see the old photos of Aoife’s parents looking so young, and her tears started falling again, like small strokes of chalk down her dirty freckled face. ‘I want my ma. I want my da.’

Aoife gathered the child into her arms, and this time the little girl didn’t resist but clung to her. Even for a four-year-old, she was extraordinarily light – mere bones; Aoife could hardly feel the weight of her at all. Standing up, she pressed her lips into the short scruffy hair. She said, ‘You’re safe with me, Eva.’

And her parents’ real daughter, the girl from the photos hidden in the drawer, the child who had been taken by the fairies eleven years ago and yet was the same age as she had ever been, said, ‘I want to go home.’

CHAPTER NINE

Still the dogs were silent. When Aoife peered out, the shadowy glade was empty of everything but drifting butterflies. Maybe the pack was hiding, ready to tear them apart. Yet she couldn’t stay here – she had to get back to the mountain falls. The little girl passed her thin arms around Aoife’s neck, and laid her small head on her shoulder – Aoife was reminded of how Carla’s little sister Zoe would sometimes insist on being carried home by Carla at the end of a long, tiring day. It felt both strange and heart-warming, having Eva hug her in the same way – like having a little sister of her own. Stroking the child’s skinny back, she said, ‘Let’s go for a walk, honey.’

Instantly the little girl struggled to get down. ‘I don’t want to! The dogs will eat me!’

Aoife kept hold of her. ‘They’re gone, honey. Anyway, they’re just stupid dogs. We’re not scared of stupid dogs.’

The child kicked her in the hip. ‘
Yes we are!
’

‘Don’t you want to see your mammy and daddy?’

Eva sobbed. ‘Yes . . .’

‘Then we can’t stay here. Be quiet and brave, and I promise I’ll bring you home safe.’

The child sobbed again, but quietly, her lips pressed tight together.

‘Good girlie.’ Holding the child high up out of the way of the thorns, Aoife pushed her way through the chest-high brambles, hastily scanned the empty glade, then sprinted as fast as she could for the avenue. Reaching the dusty road, she turned towards the falls. She had failed to bring help, but maybe there was something else she could do – maybe there was a route to climb that she hadn’t noticed before.

Eva had her head up now, braver, looking around as the world flashed by. ‘You can run very fast. Are we going home?’

‘We just have to see some friends of mine first.’

The ice-blue eyes narrowed. ‘You said we could go home! You promised!’

‘I do promise.’

A small fist struck her shoulder. ‘
When?
’

‘As soon as I can, honey. I swear to God.’

The sun was lower in the sky, and the many waterfalls crashing down the giant marble cliff were no longer pale blue but pastel pink. The pool at the base of the cliffs boiled and bubbled. No sign of the others on the tiny marble rim above. Had they already tried to get down? Had Shay dived? A bird of prey was circling in the air, just above the second pool. Was his body floating there, food for predators?

And now the bird was plummeting . . . descending in a tight rapid spiral down the smooth face of the cliff beside the falls. Not a bird of prey, but a falling body.

Aoife let the child slither to the ground and rushed forward in terror, her hands raised to the sky, trying to summon power. Maybe she could somehow catch him, hold him up . . .

The sound of terrified screaming was becoming audible over the crash of the falls beside her. ‘
AaaaaaaaEEEEEE!
’

Her mind was black with panic, swirling . . . There was nothing in her hands, no power, nothing in her blood, nothing . . .

‘. . .
AAAAAAAAAAEEEEE!
’

Not Shay but Ultan, exploding through the clouds of spray, about to land on her like a sack of rocks.

‘. . .
EEEEEEaaaaaaaaaaa
 . . .’

Miraculously, he had sprung back up into the air – ten, twenty metres. Now he was falling again, shrieking – ‘
AaaaaaaaEEEEEE
 . . .’ – face contorted with the speed of his descent. Rising again . . . His screams swelling and diminishing and finally dwindling to gasps of distress as he bounced more and more gently to a halt and ended up spinning slowly two metres above her head, making hoarse strangled squeaking noises. A thin rope was knotted around his chest and stomach.

Aoife was laughing hysterically with relief. ‘What the—? You bungee-jumped?’

He squealed in an unnaturally high voice like he could hardly breathe: ‘Bungee-
what
? Get me down!’

‘Hang on—’

‘I am hanging on! Does it look like I’m doing anything else?’

She wrenched a long branch from a yew, hooked him by the front of his shell suit and dragged him down towards her until she could get hold of his legs and pull him the rest of the way. She hugged him tight. ‘Oh, Ultan . . .’

He pushed her away, fumbling with the rope tied around his middle. ‘Don’t squeeze me – this yoke has me cut in two as it is!’

‘Here . . .’ As soon as Aoife touched the knot, it came undone and jerked out of her hand, shrinking up into the misty air like elastic contracting. ‘I can’t believe that rope was long enough to get you down.’

Ultan was sucking in lungfuls of relief, visibly expanding around the waist. ‘I know! Me too! I’m telling you, that’s the last time I ever let myself be seduced by a lenanshee.’