The Feral Child Read online

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Maddy looked up at the woman and tried to get her jellied tongue to work.

  Aoife laughed, a bright, tinkling sound that cascaded through the frigid air. “Compose yourself, honored guest,” she said. “A ride with the dullahan can be quite breathtaking.”

  “Bring Stephen out,” said Maddy, when the muscles in her mouth had solidified. “We have kept to our side of the bargain, so bring Stephen out here now.”

  Aoife smiled. “You have kept your side of the bargain?” she echoed. “I think not. You’ve had a lot of help getting here. And still you were so slow, My Lady felt compelled to have the dullahan deliver you.” She frowned, anger clouding her bright face. “You have been untruthful from the start, so do not make demands on this court with your vulgar speech. Faeries, unlike humans, cannot lie. You will have your lost child soon. But first you will attend an audience with Queen Liadan.”

  Maddy ground her teeth in frustration. “Fine.” She bit the word out. “Let’s get this over with.”

  They all started to follow Lady Aoife toward the steps, but the faerie held up a hand to stop Danny and Roisin. “Queen Liadan requests only you come before her,” she said to Maddy. “She finds it exhausting conversing with mortals and does not wish to deal with more than one of you at a time.”

  “Why?” asked Roisin.

  “Your minds work in a way very different from the minds of faeries, and your deceitful natures can be quite . . . wearing,” said Aoife.

  “Charming,” muttered Danny.

  Maddy looked Aoife in the eye. “I’m not going in there on my own.”

  Anger flashed again in Aoife’s eyes. “Do not insult us!” she snapped. “You have the word of the Winter Queen herself that you will not be harmed until the hunt starts.”

  Maddy turned to look at Danny and Roisin. Danny put his arm around his trembling sister, who looked up at Maddy and shrugged before sinking down at the bottom of the stone steps, huddling against their edges.

  “What’s the point in arguing?” she said. “They’re not going to kill us yet, at any rate. They want their hunt.”

  “You go on in. We’ll be waiting for you when you come out. Promise,” said Danny, before sitting down behind Roisin and lacing his fingers through hers. Roisin closed her eyes as tears spilled down her cheeks.

  Maddy looked at their bowed heads and swallowed a lump in her throat. Sitting so close together, it struck her how alike they were in their gestures and features. They were family; they had what she had lost. Her eyes burned with hot tears, but then Danny looked up at her. “We’re not leaving without you, Maddy. And if you’re not out soon, we’re coming in to get you.”

  Maddy wanted to sit down and put her arms around them both, to go to sleep and pretend this place didn’t exist. Instead she merely nodded at Danny, turned her back, and began to climb the steps toward Aoife. The faerie’s face shone bright with pleasure again, and she turned and led the way to the doors.

  There was a clicking noise on the steps behind them, and Maddy turned to see George trotting after her, a determined look on his face. Aoife raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth to say something, but Maddy cut her off.

  “Forget it,” she snapped. “You can’t say anything about him—he can’t talk, much less lie.”

  Aoife frowned and then nodded. “Very well. But if you value him, keep him close. Oh, and one more thing.” The faerie laid a hand on Maddy’s soaking-wet arm, sending a pulse of warmth through her. Her skin warmed and steam rose from her clothes.

  “A gift, to make you comfortable,” said Lady Aoife. She wrinkled her pretty nose. “A pity I can do nothing about the smell.”

  The huge doors were standing slightly ajar, just enough for Aoife to slip through. Maddy followed her while the doors boomed shut behind her, locks and bolts clicking and whirring and sliding into place. George jumped at the noise and pressed himself against her leg.

  When her eyes adjusted, she found herself standing in a hall dominated by high arched windows that flooded the room with cold moonlight, filtered down from above, caught and magnified and thrown about the room by more giant silver mirrors that were propped up on ornately carved stone easels. Fluted columns carved with twisting vines and flowers rose up to support a roof decorated with hunting scenes, and everything gleamed in rich jewel colors. The moonlight lit the hall up as bright as day, but warm yellow candles burned brightly where the deepest shadows lay. Outside might be virginal and plain beneath the snow and ice, but in here was decadence and wealth and beauty. Even the cold air was perfumed, and thick carpets muffled noise beneath the columns as effectively as snow.

  At the far end of the room, a crystal throne stood between two windows, shafts of reflected moonlight shattering against it to set its edges twinkling. Aoife was walking toward the throne to bend and whisper in the ear of the woman seated there. Queen Liadan.

  Her hair was a black river that flowed over her simple ivory dress to puddle at her tiny feet. Her skin was as smooth and white as fresh snow, and her cheeks and lips were stained as red as blood. Snow White, thought Maddy. I’m looking at Snow White. Around her stood her court, luminous elves dressed as rich as she was plain, in embroidered silks and elaborate brocades, heavy furs draped across their shoulders and fastened with silver and gold brooches. Their eyes and even their fingernails glittered like diamonds in the light as they clapped their jeweled fingers. Their mocking laughter was as light and sweet as breaking glass.

  Maddy felt small and dirty and ugly as she began her lonely walk on uncarpeted flagstones that marked a path to the foot of the throne. Her fingers itched to comb her tangled brown hair. Aoife had been right: Maddy stank, and her face and hands were streaked with dirt. Blood still crusted her nose from when she had fallen on the ice, and the sour taste of bile coated her mouth. Her now dry T-shirt stuck to the dried blood on the wounds on her back, and the fabric pulled at her every now and then. George sauntered beside her, his chest puffed out in a show of bravado, smelling to high heaven of wet, dirty fur.

  Aoife stepped down from the dais of the throne and went to sit with a group of women on the left-hand side of the throne who all had cloven hoofs peeping from under their lovely gowns. While the elves shone cruel and bright, there were other, darker, more unwholesome forms gathering among the pillars. Green-skinned pixies stood knee high to lumpen, glowering trolls whose tusks curved up from their lower jaws. Banshees clawed at their hair, plucked at their gray rags, and watched Maddy with eyes that burned like coals. Red-skinned men covered in thorns grinned at her menacingly from the shadows. Smaller twisted shapes scampered between the legs of these horrors, like children at a carnival. Maddy clenched her fists as the familiar leering face of Sean Rua winked at her from beneath his mop of red hair, before he dived behind the legs of a glowering knight dressed in black armor. Maddy took a deep breath and reminded herself that there was no time to go after Sean Rua now. She would get Stephen back, and if she survived this, she was going to punch the living daylights out of that child-stealing faerie if he ever set foot in Blarney again.

  She had almost reached the foot of the throne when a movement to her left caught her eye. There, gleaming bone white in the shadows between the mirrors, was Fachtna. The dark faerie sat sprawled in a carved wooden chair, her pointed chin resting in the palm of her hand as she watched Maddy. Her face was smooth and blank. Her other hand gripped heavy silver chains, which were attached to the collars of the most gruesome creatures there. They looked like dogs as they strained against their leashes and snapped their huge jaws at her, but their bodies were a boiling mass of darkness. Maddy blinked and tried to see them properly, but they blurred and shifted so she only caught glimpses of scales, claws, folded leathery wings, and fur. Scucca hounds, she realized. She cried out in fear and flinched away when one massive beast lunged at her, causing the whole court to erupt into laughter. George snarled back, but she gripped his collar tight. The fir dorocha stood behind Fachtna’s chair
, their bodies shadowy and indistinct. The only thing that stood out was their eyes, pinpricks of light that gleamed in their formless faces. Fear wafted from them like cheap aftershave.

  Maddy swallowed and walked on, stopping a few feet from the foot of the throne. Her back felt cold and vulnerable, and her fingers curled into her palms, longing for a warm hand to hold. George pressed his muscly little body against her leg. She looked up at Liadan and just as quickly dropped her eyes.

  Fionn had said that the Winter crown had cost Liadan dearly. Now Maddy could see how enormous that price had been.

  Up close, Liadan was a ruined beauty. The color in her cheeks and lips had been painted on. Her eyes were white with just the faintest smudge of a pupil, all color boiled away by the ferocious cold. Her long fingers were curled into claws, the joints and knuckles painfully swollen. Cold radiated out from her bare feet, the frost creeping across the flagstones to Maddy’s sneakers. What must once have been unearthly beauty haunted her in her glossy hair, her slight frame, and the curve of her cheek. Now her body was twisted with pain, and the cold burned in her, lighting her up with its hunger. When she spoke, her voice was the relentless grind of a glacier as it crushed and ground everything beneath its bulk.

  “Tedious child, you stand before me at last,” said Liadan. “I thought you would never arrive.”

  “I am here now and ready to honor our bargain,” said Maddy. “Give me Stephen, and then I will do as you ask and run from your hunt.”

  “Ah, yes,” Liadan’s voice groaned from her brittle chest. “The little child who has caused all this trouble. Tell me, now that you have seen this land, do you still wish to try to return home?”

  “Of course,” said Maddy.

  “What say you?” she called to her court. “Here comes this little mortal, fashioning herself as a hero. She dares to defy us. Shall we see if we can make her betray her quest?”

  As the court roared its approval, Maddy felt her heart sink. Liadan was going to make this as hard as possible.

  “Hmmm, how shall we test you?” asked the Winter Queen, as she sat back in her throne and drummed her twisted fingers on its arm. “Are you too young for a kiss from a gancanagh? Connor, show yourself.”

  A dark-haired man stepped from the crowds that lurked beneath the pillars and bowed to Maddy, giving her a warm smile. He was so beautiful it made her throat ache to look at him. But she shook her head and tore her gaze away from him to look at Liadan.

  “Please, give me Stephen,” she said.

  “Alas, Connor, the child is impervious to your charms—the first mortal to be so in a long time,” Liadan commented. The hall erupted into laughter, and the dark-haired faerie smiled and stepped back into the crowd.

  “If you are too young for a kiss, perhaps a mother is what you crave,” said Liadan, waving one hand at the goat-legged women. “One of my glaistigs would no doubt love to take the post. They may look strange to your eyes, but they are very maternal.”

  The glaistigs giggled and blew her kisses while the Winter Court’s laughter turned shrill and mocking.

  “I have a mother, Majesty, and I have no wish to replace her,” said Maddy. “Please, if you will, give me Stephen as you promised.”

  “You have no mother, for she is dead,” said Liadan. “What use is a dead mother?”

  “She is more than enough for me,” said Maddy, her voice low as anger began to boil.

  “Does she rock you to sleep? Comfort you when you are sick?” asked Liadan.

  “No.”

  “Then I ask again, what use is a dead mother?”

  Maddy ground her teeth. “I couldn’t tell you, Majesty, but to me, she is enough.”

  “How pathetic. Is that really the best answer you can give?” asked Liadan, her face twisting in an ugly sneer, the painted mouth a vicious wound in the ravaged face. Maddy said nothing. “Very well,” she sighed. “Bring the child forth.”

  A ripple went through the group of glaistigs, and they parted to show a dark-haired one among them sitting with Stephen curled up asleep in her lap. She gathered the slumbering child in her arms and stepped toward Maddy, her hoofs trip-trapping over the flagstones. Maddy snatched him from the faerie and snuggled him close, kissing his hair and breathing in the warm, soft, familiar smell of him. She bit back a sob of relief when she saw the plastic dinosaur still clutched in his chubby fist. Stephen lay limp in her arms, his eyes roving restlessly beneath blue-veined lids, a frown puckering his face. She wrapped his dressing gown tighter around him and put her lips to his ear.

  “Stephen, wake up, darling,” she said. “It’s Maddy, I’ve come to take you home. Stephen?” But Stephen slept on.

  She looked up at Liadan.

  “He is unharmed, as you promised?” she asked.

  “Not one hair on his head has been hurt,” said Liadan. “My ladies-in-waiting have cared for him as if he were their own.”

  “So why isn’t he awake?” asked Maddy.

  “A harmless glamour to save him distress,” said Liadan airily. “My soft-hearted attendants could not bear to see him cry. He will wake as soon as he gets home.”

  “So that’s it?” asked Maddy. “We can go now? No more trying to tempt me to stay?”

  “No, I think a night’s hunting will be much more fun,” said Liadan, yawning. “You are free to run.”

  “How am I supposed to get off this island?” Maddy asked.

  “That’s not really my concern, nor is it part of our bargain,” said Liadan.

  “No, but it will be a short and boring hunt if we just run round and round the tower,” said Maddy. “It would benefit you to help us off the island and give us a head start.”

  Again laughter roared up to the painted roof.

  Liadan smiled, a cold, ghastly imitation of the real thing. “Let us hope you can run as fast as you talk, little one,” she said.

  She stood and made her painful way down the dais to Maddy. One shoulder hunched and a foot dragged behind ever so slightly, giving her a shuffling step. Maddy’s body involuntarily jerked away from the cold that splashed around the queen as she walked past Maddy toward the double doors at the back of the hall. Maddy fell in behind her, as did the rest of the court. She noticed that all of them took great care to keep their feet beyond the frost that shivered from Liadan’s every step.

  The golden bolts and locks on the doors began to whirr and click into life as Liadan approached, shooting bolts and turning tumblers as her bone-numbing cold reached out and patterned their lower reaches with ice. She held out her arms and cried out and the doors flew open at her approach. At the foot of the steps, Danny and Roisin stood and gazed open-mouthed as Liadan picked her way toward them, with Maddy, Stephen, George, and her court trailing in her wake.

  “Ah yes, the spares,” said Liadan as she caught sight of them. “Come with us.”

  Warily, Danny and Roisin fell into step next to Maddy.

  Roisin frowned when she saw Stephen in such a deep sleep in Maddy’s arms. “Why doesn’t he wake up?” she asked.

  “He will,” said Maddy grimly, hugging him closer to her. “He will. We just have to get him home.”

  Liadan made her painful, crippled way down the road that led to the lakeside. After the long descent to the shore, she walked to the edge of the waves, crouched, and put a hand in the water.

  As soon as her skin touched the waves, the surface of the lake shuddered like an animal. Water began to turn to ice around her wrist, and she called out a single word. The ice floes collided and crushed themselves to fine powder against each other. The powder mingled with the stiffening waves until, in a matter of seconds, an ice bridge stretched from shore to shore.

  “Cross quickly while the bridge holds,” said Liadan. “Once your feet touch the soil on the other side, the hunt starts. You will be shown no mercy.”

  Maddy nodded and turned to go.

  “One more thing,” said Liadan, as Maddy turned back to face her, Stephen cradled against her chest.
“If it’s to be a proper hunt, then the hounds should follow a blood trail. Don’t you think?”

  Maddy looked at her in confusion. Before she had time to react, Liadan closed the gap between them and grabbed Maddy’s shoulder. Shards of ice shot from her fingertips and slid straight through Maddy’s skin.

  Maddy’s heart missed a beat, and all the sound in the world rushed out of her ears. She clutched Stephen even tighter and stared stupidly at the white fingers hooked into her skin and the hot red blood that pattered on to Stephen’s fine blond hair. Somewhere she could hear Roisin and Danny shouting. When Liadan let go, Maddy sank to her knees, her legs too weak from shock to hold her up. Sound rushed back in a wave and broke over her head.

  “What are you doing?” yelled Roisin, restraining a barking George from biting Liadan, as Danny rushed to Maddy’s side. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt us!”

  “Only on the journey toward me,” hissed Liadan, her boiled eyes narrowed to slits. “I made no such provision for the journey away.”

  With that she turned on her heel and swept back toward the tower, her court still following in her wake.

  “Come on, Maddy, we’ve got to get out of here,” said Danny, hooking his arms underneath her armpits and hauling her to her feet. Maddy yelled with pain as he lifted her, her body jerking with the cold that spread from her shoulder like an infection. Her breath came in shallow gulps, but her head was drenched in hot sweat. Roisin rushed to take Stephen from her, while Danny pulled one of her arms around his neck and set off along the ice bridge, making her scream again as her wound was jolted.

  She could barely keep her head up as the cold spread through her body. George raced across the bridge, urging them on with barks that were high and sharp with anxiety. Danny dragged Maddy, her feet tripping over each other as she sobbed, her breath hitching in her chest.

  “Keep going,” Danny grunted. “We’re nearly there. Just a little bit further.”

  After what seemed like an eternity, they half fell, half slid from the bridge on to the far shore. Maddy collapsed on to the ground and curled up, giving into the pain. Across the lake she could hear the mournful cry of a hunting horn. The Winter Court’s hunt was riding out, and she couldn’t take another step.