Authors: Jennifer Fallon
‘Empty your pockets.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I must check that you are not carrying any
washi
,’ she explained. ‘Namito was very firm on that. “If you find the
Youkai
, be certain he cannot bewitch us with
ori mahou
”, he said. He was quite adamant about it.’
Ren shook his head, a little confused, but did as she asked, turning his pockets out to prove he had no paper in them.
Ori
and
maho
, in the Japanese Ren spoke, roughly translated as folding and magic. Chishihero’s truth spell with the little
origami
heart
almost made sense, if that’s what Kazusa was worried about. He decided not to tell her he had no idea how to make anything out of folding magic, or that he didn’t need it. He needed to discover what was going on here first. He needed to find out if Kazusa was offering him help or just a different type of trouble.
‘Good enough?’ he asked, as she inspected his pockets closely, disinterested in the other contents. Apparently, all she cared about was paper.
‘Good enough,’ she agreed. ‘Walk ahead of me.’
Suspicious little thing, aren’t you?
he said to himself, as he returned his pockets to their previous state. ‘Where are we going?’
‘I will show you the way.’
‘Is it far?’
‘Not especially.’
‘Is there food there?’
She poked him in the back to get him moving. ‘There is,’ Kazusa informed him, as she shouldered the
katana
again. ‘It remains to be seen, however,
Youkai
, whether or not my brother wishes to waste it on you.’
It was raining again by the time Darragh and Sorcha reached Jack’s place, which was fortunate because it kept the paparazzi next door in their cars. Darragh’s ankle was swollen and throbbing by the time Sorcha retrieved the key from its hiding place in the glasshouse and they let themselves into the kitchen. Rónán had a memory of Jack owning an impressive first aid kit, which Sorcha located in a cupboard under the kitchen sink. By the time Jack got home from his gardening club meeting, Darragh’s ankle was bandaged, he was almost dry and feeling very little pain due to the helpful contents of a small white bottle in the kit labelled ‘codeine’.
‘What the feck are you two doing here?’ Jack demanded. He entered the kitchen through the back door, shaking the rain from his coat as he spied Darragh sitting at the table. He didn’t need to have it explained to him that this was Darragh and not Rónán. Jack had seen them together and could tell the boys apart at a glance.
‘There was trouble at the rift,’ Sorcha explained, coming up behind the old man. She had a kitchen knife in her right hand and a scowl on her face that did not bode well for Jack’s future if he refused to help.
Jack ignored Sorcha and stared at Darragh. ‘Trouble at the rift, you say? Is that how you cut your face?’
Darragh fingered the bruised slice across his cheek. It was still there which meant Rónán hadn’t yet realised he was able to heal the injury magically. It seemed odd to Darragh that Ciarán or Brógán wouldn’t have explained to Rónán by now that he could heal himself.
‘No. This is an injury Rónán received in another reality.’
Jack looked around then, as if expecting to see Darragh’s brother. ‘Where’s Ren?’
‘Safely through to the realm where he belongs,’ Darragh assured the old man, although he had no real way of knowing. He was certain Jack would toss them out if they intimated that something ill had befallen his twin.
‘Not so safe, if somebody’s already smacked him in the face. What are you and Attila the Hen, here, still doing in this realm?’ he asked, full of suspicion and doubt.
‘Something happened to the rift,’ Darragh explained. ‘I sprained my ankle and couldn’t get to it before it closed.’
Jack stared at both of them with a doubtful expression, shaking his head. ‘So you came here? To my house? Next door to Kiva’s place? Are you mad? This is the first place they’ll look for you! Christ, half the fecking Dublin press corps is parked outside your mother’s place!’
‘That woman is not Darragh’s mother!’ Sorcha sounded offended. ‘His mother, and Rónán’s too, was the Druidess Sybille —’
‘Whose stupid idea was it you come here?’ Jack cut in, ignoring Sorcha’s interruption.
‘Patrick’s,’ Darragh said as Jack slumped into the chair opposite at the table. ‘He said he’d come for us later.’
‘Jaysus, you didn’t tell him I helped you find Hayley at that rehab centre, did you?’
Darragh shook his head. ‘Hayley made it safely through the rift. Patrick doesn’t realise I’m not Rónán, and he hopes I’ll tell him what happened to her.’
‘There’s a conversation not to be missed,’ Jack muttered sourly. ‘Jaysus-fecking-Christ, what am I supposed to do with you two now?’
‘Shelter us until we can find a way home,’ Sorcha said.
‘How long is that going to be?’
‘Until I can contact Rónán, that’s all,’ Darragh said, making it sound straightforward and everyday. ‘Once I arrange for him to open the rift on the other side, we can leave, and you’ll never see us again.’
Jack frowned, as if he believed the promise a little too glib to be genuine.
A fair assessment, Darragh conceded. He had no way of knowing if he could contact his brother, no way of knowing if he would ever find his way back to the reality where he belonged. The mechanics of their return were something he didn’t feel the need to burden Jack with. Better the old man keep thinking that contacting another reality was no more complicated than dialling up … what had Rónán called it … the puddle phone?
Jack remained unconvinced. ‘You can’t trust Patrick Boyle,’ he warned. ‘You’ve nicked his daughter, lad. He isn’t trying to help
you
. He’s trying to find Hayley.’
‘We can explain what happened to her,’ Sorcha said.
The old man snorted at her. ‘To be sure you can. And when Darragh delivers your lunatic explanation about how he sent her off to an alternate reality to be healed by Faeries, his next call will be to the good Doctor Symes who’s gonna have Ren-Mark-Two here declared criminally insane. You won’t see the light of day again, lad, not until you’re my age.
If
you’re lucky.’
Darragh held up his right hand, displaying the triskalion. ‘But it’s obvious I am not my brother. His tattoo is on his left hand.’
Jack shook his head. ‘It won’t matter. They’ll convince themselves that’s where it’s always been, because that’ll make more sense than what you’ll be telling them.’
‘Then we must silence Patrick Boyle,’ Sorcha declared. ‘If he cannot speak, he cannot betray us.’ She hefted the carving knife pointedly and added to Jack, ‘I am with you, old man, in your belief that his betrayal is not only likely, but inevitable.’
‘Patrick is not Amergin,’ Darragh reminded her, weary of her insistence the similarities between the men made Patrick in any way predictable. Or certain to betray them.
‘He is near enough to be dangerous,’ Sorcha replied.
‘Who the feck is Amergin?’ Jack asked.
‘Patrick Boyle’s
eileféin
,’ Darragh replied with a sigh. He didn’t want to have this discussion with Jack. He wanted to have it even less with Sorcha.
‘His
what
?’ Jack asked, climbing stiffly to his feet. He walked over to the counter and took the electric kettle from the bench to fill it at the sink, asking, ‘Anybody else want a cup of tea?’
‘No, thank you,’ Darragh said, seeing a welcome opportunity to change the subject. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but we helped ourselves to breakfast before you —’
‘An
eileféin
is the alternate-reality version of a person from our reality,’ Sorcha explained, undeterred. ‘It turns out Patrick Boyle is the
eileféin
of the most heinous traitor ever spawned by man in our reality, the Vate of All Eire, Amergin.’
Jack turned the kettle on and then pulled out a battered enamelled mug from the sink. ‘Seriously?’ he asked, as he rinsed it under the tap. ‘Kiva’s house boy? Pussy-whipped Patrick? The Vate of
All
Eire? Can’t see it, myself. But that’s why it’s an
alternate
reality, I suppose.’
‘They’re not
exactly
the same person,’ Darragh pointed out. ‘Obviously your history has diverged significantly from ours. But his bloodline runs true enough for him to be considered
eileféin
.’
‘Which means what, exactly?’ Jack asked, dropping a teabag into his chipped mug before shovelling an alarming amount of sugar into it.
‘It means he’s likely to betray us,’ Sorcha announced at almost exactly the same time as Darragh replied, ‘Nothing.’
Jack’s gaze swung back and forth between them for a moment. Then he smiled. ‘I’m sensing a differing of opinions here.’
‘Sorcha mistrusts everyone,’ Darragh explained.
‘Then she’s obviously the brains of the outfit,’ the old man said.
The kettle bubbled to a boil and switched off. Darragh was secretly fascinated by the self-heating kettle, but he couldn’t afford to let himself be distracted by the gadgets and gimmickries of this realm.
‘Patrick will do nothing until he’s spoken to us about Hayley,’ Darragh assured him. ‘I know him better than both of you, and that is what I believe.’
‘You’ve been here a couple of days, lad,’ Jack reminded him. ‘You don’t know squat. Fetch the milk for me, would you, love?’ he added to Sorcha who was standing closest to the fridge. She scowled at being addressed as ‘love’ but did as Jack asked.
‘I have Rónán’s memories,’ Darragh told the old man with complete confidence. ‘Rónán trusted Patrick with his life.’
Sorcha handed the carton to Jack and slammed the fridge door, turning on Darragh impatiently. ‘Do I have to keep reminding you and your credulous brother exactly what happens when the Undivided trust Amergin? Or any other manifestation of him in any other realm?’
‘Why do you assume Amergin would betray us?’ Darragh asked. ‘Perhaps the defining event in our reality was the interference of Marcroy Tarth. With no Faerie lord here to corrupt him, Patrick could prove to be our greatest ally.’
‘You’d not be wanting to bet twenty-to-life on that, lad,’ Jack said, bringing his tea back to the table. ‘He certainly hasn’t shown any guilt about tossing me into the shite-hole with you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that if the Gardaí find you sitting here, shooting the breeze in my kitchen, I’ll be in a shiteload of trouble, lad, along with you.’
‘Do you want us to leave?’
Jack hesitated, and then he shrugged. ‘You can stay. For now. At least until you talk with Patrick. You’re going to have to convince him Hayley is safe and well, though, or he’ll be calling the Gardaí from here.’
‘And then what?’ Sorcha asked.
The old man shrugged. ‘And then you’d best figure how to get home, lass, because you’re not going to last long in this reality waiting for faeries to come rescue you.’
‘The Faerie are the cause of our problem, not the solution to it,’ Sorcha complained.
Jack looked at Sorcha in wonder, shaking his head. ‘It’s fascinating the way you can say that with a perfectly straight face.’
‘Is there any way to tell if the authorities know we’re still in this realm?’ Darragh asked, mostly to distract Sorcha who was looking a little offended.
Turning back to Darragh, Jack shrugged. ‘The TV, maybe. They were all over this on the morning bulletins.’
‘Do you have a TV?’ Sorcha asked.
Jack smiled. ‘You really are from another world, aren’t you?’
It turned out to be a long walk to Kazusa’s compound. Or rather, her family’s compound. For the better part of an hour, as the sun climbed steadily higher in a bright, cloudless sky, Ren allowed Kazusa to poke and prod him, guiding him this way and that through the trees, pointing him in the direction of her home. After about an hour, they broke out of the
kozo
trees onto a low ridge that looked down over an emerald valley, surrounded by more carefully planted stands of trees. The distant hills were terraced in what seemed to be rice paddies. Nearer the ridge, fat black-faced sheep grazed on the edge of a settlement clustered around a large walled complex of brick buildings with red tiled roofs, quite unlike the wooden buildings of the Tanabe compound. There were armed samurai patrolling the top of the wide, mud-brick walls surrounding the buildings. It might have been a village or a concentration camp. It was hard to tell from this distance. It wasn’t a fort, he figured. Much of the village was outside the thick walls, and despite the armed men patrolling the top of the walls, they didn’t seem high enough to deter an invasion. It was almost as if they’d been built to contain rather than repel.
‘That’s home?’
‘
Hai
. That is
Shin Bungo
, home of the great and glorious Ikushima clan.’
‘Impressive.’
Kazusa smiled. ‘One day, we will be the most powerful clan in
Airurundo
.’
‘Says who?’ Ren asked, wondering at this girl’s self-assurance. She had answered an important question for him, though. She’d called this place
Airurundo
, not
Nippon
or
Nihon.
They were still in Ireland. The exploding rift had sent them to some wacked-out reality where the Japanese ruled Ireland. Ren couldn’t imagine how far back in history his reality had diverged from this one for that to happen.
‘My brother, Namito, says so,’ Kazusa informed him proudly. ‘He says that when the Empresses are —’ She stopped abruptly, her eyes narrowing, as she hefted the
katana
off her shoulder and pointed it at Ren’s belly.
Kazusa had been lugging the heavy sword for a while, and the weight of it was telling on her. Her arm was trembling with the strain of holding it level. Ren could have disarmed her in an instant, if he’d wanted, but she was taking him somewhere they might not want to kill him on sight — somewhere he might get food and water and some idea of how he was going to get home. Ren was content to let Kazusa believe she had the better of him. For now.