‘Phew,’ panted Lucy, leaning against the door. ‘That was the most frightening thing ever! But what a storm, Cait! Shall we go up to the secret room?’
‘Climb those terrible stairs in a storm I will not, and you would be mad to do so, Luceen, with the place liable to tumble around your ears any second,’ Caitlin said roundly. ‘Let’s sit on the floor under the table and say a Hail Mary.’
‘I’m going up; think of the
view
, Cait,’ Lucy said, though she did not much fancy climbing the stone steps whilst the thunder continued to crash right overhead. ‘If the stairs shake though, divil a bit further will I climb, you may be sure of that.’
‘Don’t leave me down here alone,’ Caitlin said, clutching her friend’s sleeve. ‘Oh stay, Luceen, your Maeve will kill me if I let you get into mischief.’
‘Come with me, then,’ Lucy said stoutly, heading for the stairs. ‘I need to be doing, Cait, I can’t stay here shaking like a lily leaf, I’m better doing.’
So when Lucy started to climb Caitlin was close on her heels and presently both girls realised something which made them feel a good deal safer.
‘The stairs don’t shake, not even a tiddy bit,’ Lucy said. ‘I told you these old stones had lasted a thousand years and would go on for a bit yet.’
‘Aye, they’re steady so they are,’ Caitlin agreed. ‘Are we nearly at the door, alanna?’
Glancing back, Lucy discovered that Caitlin was climbing with both eyes squeezed tightly closed and that her own brief skirt was clutched in Caitlin’s paw. For the first time ever she was the leader and she liked it. She gave her friend’s shoulder a reassuring pat.
‘We’re there,’ she said, stopping in front of the door. ‘And I think the storm’s moving away at last. Let’s hope the door doesn’t stick or we won’t get a good view at all at all.’
As if the thunder had heard and wanted to make a liar of her it crashed again, sharply, right overhead, just as Lucy pushed the door and it swung obediently open. She and Caitlin stepped into the secret room – and stopped short.
They were not alone. Leaning half out of the window was a small and shabby figure with a shock of white hair. Dressed in an ankle length black skirt, cracked black boots and a tattered shawl which was more hole than pattern, the person – a woman, presumably – had not heard them for the sounds of the storm, or possibly for the sounds that she herself was uttering, for she was shrieking like a banshee and cackling first with laughter and then with what sounded like annoyance, though it was difficult to tell without being able to see her face.
‘Who is it?’ Caitlin whispered. She had obviously opened her eyes, the journey up the stairs having been accomplished. ‘What’s she doing?’
‘Watching the storm,’ Lucy whispered back. ‘I don’t want to startle her in case she falls out . . . we’d better just stand still until she turns back into the room.’
But Caitlin had not suffered the terrors of the stairs for nothing. She shook her head obstinately. ‘I want to look out,’ she hissed. ‘Come on, the old woman won’t notice us moving round.’
And Caitlin was right. The small female continued to shriek, to swear, and to laugh whilst the two girls moved round to the nearest window-slit and peered out.
And it was worth doing so. Lucy watched, awed, as first the rain came sheeting across the lough like a veil, then the sun would peep out from behind a black cloud making rainbows, then the thunder, rumbling sullenly, would crack and the lightning would flicker across the blackness, looking not gold or silver, but a sort of electric lavender blue.
‘It is moving off,’ Caitlin breathed against Lucy’s ear. ‘I never did see such a storm, me. Oh, look at the rainbows!’
‘Look at the big one will you, stretching right across the lough . . . ah, here comes the rain in earnest.’
They stood back from the window as the wind, which had dropped whilst the storm raged, drove the rain straight at them, or so it seemed, and at the same moment the little creature gave one last squawk and turned towards them.
She was very old and very, very dirty. Her snow white hair was laced liberally with dirt and bits of hay, and her skin was soft and dark, crumpled and cobwebbed with tiny lines. She was thin as a thread, and bent like the moorland trees, and she was no bigger than a child of six or seven. But, astonishingly, Lucy saw that she was still pretty, with eyes as black and sparkling as a young girl’s, a haughty little nose and a firm and pointed chin beneath a mouth sunken through age and toothlessness.
They didn’t get much chance to look at her though. She shrieked again, revealing that she didn’t have so much as a tooth in her head, and dived head-first into the piled up hay, disappearing so fast that the girls did not have a chance to stop her.
‘Well, did you see that?’ Caitlin gasped. ‘Why did she go in there?’
‘Scared,’ Lucy said briefly. ‘She didn’t know we were here, so we frightened her, I suppose.’ She leaned down over the pile of hay. ‘Come out do, alanna,’ she said coaxingly. ‘Sure and we’d never hurt you, this is your own little room, I daresay? Come out and say good afternoon like a Christian.’
The hay remained unmoving.
‘Who were you shouting at?’ Lucy wheedled. ‘Wasn’t the storm great, then? Ah, come on, we’re only a couple o’ kids, we wouldn’t hurt you, grandma.’
Several more remarks failed to get the hay to stir and Lucy was about to give up when Caitlin sat down on the floor with a thump and addressed her friend, whilst keeping a wary eye on the hay-tump.
‘Amn’t I glad we brought so many delicious hard-boiled eggs and so much of your Maeve’s new-baked bread, Lu?’ she said innocently. ‘Enough there is for an army and we’d share willingly, wouldn’t we, Luceen? And the chocolate cake with the butter icing that melts in the mouth – enough for five or six my mammy did pack in our old blue bag. And it isn’t everyone who can make lemon barley like Mammy, to quench your thirst and make you want more at one and the same time.’
The hay definitely stirred. Both girls held their breath.
‘It’s the drink I’m longing for,’ Lucy said, her eyes on the hay. ‘Sure it’ll slide down me dry t’roat like a trout slipping along the stream bed. Why, if there’s a drink I do love it’s your mammy’s lemon barley.’
A small and dirty face could be dimly seen through the hay, whilst two large, dark eyes burned out at them. Caitlin opened the blue bag and peered inside as though unaware she had an audience. She brought forth rustling parcels and laid them tenderly on the dusty boards between herself and Lucy. The watching face emerged altogether from the hay and the owner heaved herself right out and crouched there, staring at them, half hopeful, half wary.
Lucy leaned forward and picked up a slice of chocolate cake.
‘Would you like some of this, missus?’ she asked politely. ‘Or would you rather start with a sandwich or two, and a drink?’
‘Sure an’ we’ve not been interduced,’ the old lady said in a voice creaky with age and lack of use. ‘Will ye not give me your names before we share a crust?’
But her bright eyes did not seem able to move from the cake and when Lucy held it out a grimy paw with blackened nails reached out and grabbed it, though she did not immediately carry it to her mouth.
‘Sorry, missus,’ Caitlin said humbly. ‘I’m Caitlin Kelly and me friend’s Lucy Murphy. And your name?’
‘Moggy, Granny Mogg,’ the old woman said thickly; the cake had at last reached her mouth, crammed in by an impatient hand. ‘I’m Granny Mogg so I am, Moggy to me pals.’ She cackled briefly, spraying crumbs. ’Tis good cake,’ she added, swallowing the last mouthful. ’Tis rare tasty, Caitlin. Ah, wouldn’t it be grand if I had cake like t’at every day, now?’
‘We don’t get chocolate cake every day, Granny Mogg,’ Lucy said hastily. ‘Only for a special picnic. Would you be having a drink of the barley water now?’
The old woman looked curiously at the bottle, but shook her head. ‘I’m thinkin’ I’d best stick wit’ tay,’ she said. ‘A cup o’ tay goes down well wi’ cake.’
Silently, Lucy leaned forward and picked up the remaining piece of cake; it was taken from her hand – almost snatched – at once and despite her toothlessness the old lady made short work of it. Then she sat back on her heels and gazed expectantly at the girls. Lucy broke the silence.
‘The storm’s moving away, thank the Lord,’ she said. ‘But would you look at that rain? We’ll be here for a while yet.’
It was true that the rain was falling steadily but Lucy did not think it would last all that long, she had merely made the remark for something to say, and now she sat down and began to unwrap the rest of their picnic.
‘A sandwich, Mrs Mogg?’ she said presently and, after some rather unconvincing remarks that ‘I shouldn’t take your food, indeed indeed,’ the sandwich disappeared inside Granny Mogg, who smacked her lips and said it was ‘a fair treat, so it was’.
‘Have you lived here long?’ Lucy asked presently, when the first edge of their hunger was dulled. ‘Where do you do your shopping? I can’t remember seeing you in Cahersiveen.’
Granny Mogg stared reflectively out at the steadily falling rain. ‘I’ve lived ’ere a whiles,’ she said after a moment. ‘I doesn’t do no shoppin’, though, child. How would I pay for shoppin’ eh? I lives off the land, I does.’
‘Do you eat rabbits? And raw corn, and blackberries, and nuts?’ Caitlin asked, letting her incredulity show. ‘We’ve got a friend at school, his gran’s a hundred years old and she eats rabbits wit’ their fur and all still on.’
‘I skins ’em,’ Granny Mogg said with disdain. ‘Eatin’ fur’s mortal dirty, an’ bad for ye. I dunna tek to raw flesh, either. Why, your friend’s gran must have a set o’ teeth on ’er like a farmer’s dog if she kin eat raw flesh.’
‘Oh, it’s only what they say,’ Lucy said comfortably, taking a pull out of the bottle. She swallowed, then handed the drink on to Caitlin. ‘Do you eat fish, cooked over a fire?’
Granny Mogg thought for a moment, giving Lucy quick, bright little glances out of her shrewd and sparkling eyes, then nodded. ‘Aye; I’m fond of a nice piece of fish.’
‘The trout in the lough are good,’ Lucy said, nodding, too. ‘Do you fish from the curragh beside the creek?’
This time there was a distinct pause whilst Granny Mogg’s brow wrinkled in cogitation. Then, with some reluctance, she shook her head. ‘No indeed, for if I got into t’at tippery shell wouldn’t I be drowneded dead in a moment? Girls can’t swim, childer, it ain’t for females, not swimmin’ ain’t. No, I gets fish give be – be a friend.’
‘He’s a very shy friend, the one who fishes from the curragh, for never have we set eyes on him,’ Caitlin remarked. ‘What does he use for oars, Granny?’
The old woman shook her head. ‘Ne’er mind,’ she said. ‘If it hadn’t been for the young devil I’d not be here. And you’d best forget you met me,’ she added. ‘We’re hidin’ up, see? Not hurtin’ no one, just hidin’ up.’ She dropped her voice and made the sign of the cross, first to her left, then to her right, then on the bony ridge of her breast bone. ‘Sure an’ they t’ought I was dead,’ she whispered. ‘They meant me to die, they put me out on a turble night, with the snow sweepin’ in across the mountains . . . if it hadn’t been for the young devil . . .’
The girls leaned closer to catch her words, Lucy uneasily aware of a thrill of fear running through her. Was the old woman mad, or had someone really tried to kill her? And if so, was that person even now approaching the castle with evil in his heart – evil which might spread to encompass two defenceless girls as well as the old woman?
‘Who did it, Granny?’ Lucy asked, unconsciously whispering in her turn. ‘Who tried to kill you? And why?’
But before Granny Mogg could say a word the door to their retreat shot open, causing all three of them to give a shriek of sheer shock and terror, before Granny Mogg dived into the tump of hay and Caitlin and Lucy, hearts thumping, turned to face the doorway.
A boy stood there, framed by the silvery wood. His mouth was opened on an ‘o’ of surprise and his eyes, black as night, rounded with disbelief when they met Lucy’s before narrowing again to slide quickly round the room. Then he stepped in and Lucy noticed the string of trout in one hand and the spoon-shaped oar in the other. It was undoubtedly the curragh owner, the giver of fish . . . the young devil himself!
For a moment no one said a word; the hay stopped quivering, the boy’s stare ceased to roam the room and fixed itself with unnerving steadiness on Lucy, and outside the rain seemed to give a little sigh before continuing to fall whilst the thunder rumbled away into the distance and a long finger of golden sunlight slid through the western window-slit and fell across the dusty floor.
‘And just what’ve you done wi’ the old woman?’
The accent was strange – Lucy found herself wondering what part of Kerry the boy hailed from – but the meaning perfectly clear. Lucy pointed to the hay. The boy nodded.
‘Sure and she’s the nervous one, isn’t she? No wonder, either, after last summer – and now tell me, will you, just where you two beauties sprang from?’
Out of the corner of her eye Lucy saw Caitlin bridle and drop her eyes so that she could look up at the boy through her lashes; it made Lucy smile since she was absolutely certain of one thing – that when the ‘young devil’ used the expression ‘two beauties’, the last thing on his mind was their looks. And Caitlin suddenly seemed to realise the same thing, for she stopped looking coquettish and looked worried, instead.
The boy sighed, then laid his fish carefully down on the board floor and propped his oddly shaped oar against the wall. Then he took two steps into the room and Lucy shrank back, suddenly aware of menace in his dark-eyed glance. He was older than she and Caitlin, taller, stronger . . . and he seemed to be angry with them, though why this should be she had not yet worked out.
‘Well? You, the little fair one, where d’you come from and what are you doin’ in this old castle, where no one comes?’
‘We came for a picnic,’ Lucy said. She stood her ground but could not help her glance shooting towards the hay-tump. It was moving again, not much but enough to make her realise that Granny Mogg, having realised who the boy was, was definitely considering emerging. This made her feel better, though she could not have said why. ‘Only there was the storm . . . so we came into the castle and climbed up here and . . . and there was Mrs Mogg, watching the lightning through the window.’