The Feral Child Page 17

  “If I can cross into this world with my court, there’s no Coranied to stop us,” she continued. “We can feed on all the bad stuff going on in your world right now, and we don’t even have to start a war. And I’ll be strong as a Tuatha, and I’ll be able to bear the weight of this crown. And you are the key to all of this.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Maddy.

  “You are a rare jewel, Maddy—a child who desires to die,” said Liadan. “You are so full of rage and grief and hate. As pathetic as humans are, the will to live is the strongest urge, the last light to be snuffed out, and children cling to it hardest of all. Do you realize the power you create when you reverse that? The chaos? I’ve been trying to create that chaos with the children I’ve taken over the years, tried to torture them to the brink of death, but they all resisted. But with you I didn’t have to do a thing.”

  “You’re lying,” said Maddy.

  “No, I’m not,” said Liadan. “Stephen was never the child we wanted, Maddy. It was always you. You’re an agent of destruction, a walking curse, and we’ve been feeding off you ever since you set foot in our world. It is you who gave us the strength to get this far, to make it to the place between the worlds. Now you can help us step across.”

  “How can I do that?” asked Maddy. “I can’t get across myself.”

  “I just need you to hand your mind over to me and let me unleash that chaos. I’ll do the rest.”

  Maddy laughed. “Why on earth would I do that?”

  Liadan leaned closer. “Because I can give you what you crave most . . . in any world. I can give you your parents back.”

  Maddy stared at her, open-mouthed. The snow whirled gently down to coat their heads. “No, you really are lying now,” she whispered hoarsely. “You can’t raise the dead.”

  “Watch,” said Liadan.

  Blackness covered Maddy’s eyes. She cried out, her eyes straining in their sockets, and then she smelled her mother’s perfume. She felt a hand settle on her shoulder and another smooth her hair back from her face and tuck it behind one ear, just the way her mother used to do. Sounds and smells rushed toward her, and her head was flooded with a bright light.

  She was standing in the kitchen of their house in London. Her father was cooking dinner, and her mother was sitting at the table reading out loud from the newspaper. They were discussing the article, smiles hovering around their lips. Maddy stood and watched them, tears pouring down her face. Her mother glanced up and saw her and put the newspaper down on the table, her face full of concern. Her father broke off in midsentence and turned to face her, frowning. “Maddy, darling, what’s wrong?” he asked.

  Maddy just cried harder, but a smile spread across her face at the same time. She was about to run forward and throw herself into his arms when the scene in front of her began to dissolve and recede, like water disappearing down a plughole. Just before her fingertips brushed the soft cotton of her father’s T-shirt, she was left alone in the darkness again.

  “NO!” she screamed. She bent double, her face pressed against the wet grass of the mound. “Give them back, give them back . . .” Sobs wracked her body. The pain from her wound spread down and out and sapped her strength.

  “I will, Maddy. Of course I will,” soothed Liadan. “All you have to do is hand yourself over to me. Let your mind be my bridge into the mortal world, and you can live your life here, between them. You will never be apart from your parents again. You’ll never get any older, and they will never die. Isn’t that what you want?”

  “What will happen to everyone here?” Maddy asked.

  Liadan waved her hand, a look of contempt on her face. “What do you care? Nothing will ever touch you again. You’ll never have to hear another human voice, apart from your parents.”

  Maddy looked down at the frozen ground and bit her lip until hot salty blood ran down her chin. She thought of Granny sewing by the fire, Mr. and Mrs. Forest and that house full of tumbling, loud, laughing boys and the smells of good things to eat. She thought of George and the way he smelled after they walked in the rain, his rough warm tongue on her face. She thought of Stephen’s hot hand sliding into hers on a summer day, sticky with ice cream. She thought of Fionn’s silvery fingers falling on snow. She thought of her parents again, and fresh tears poured down her face. Granda was pressed against the faerie barrier, his eyes locked on to hers.

  Whatever a faerie promises you, whatever they try to tempt you with, it’s not real, said his voice in her head. You have to trust your heart, not your eyes, and turn your feet for home.

  “Maddy, look at me,” said Liadan, her voice as soft as a snake’s hiss. “Look into my eyes, and I can give you your life back.”

  Maddy shifted off one knee and got her foot underneath her body. She looked at Liadan.

  “Shove it,” she wheezed.

  “What did you say?” said Liadan, her eyes narrowing in rage.

  “I said shove it, Tinkerbell,” said Maddy. “You’re full of it, and if you think I’m letting you run around my head, then your lift isn’t reaching the top floor.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth Maddy lunged forward.

  It almost worked. The barrier shivered as her shoulder pierced it, and for a brief moment she felt the wet drumming of rain on the back of her head, before a piercing cold enveloped her and she was yanked back on to the mound. Liadan leaned over her and gripped her ribs in her hands, ice rippling from her fingertips to coat Maddy’s chest. Maddy screamed in agony, and her body jerked like a fish on a line. Liadan sat up, panting with rage, while Maddy moaned, half unconscious with pain. The rest of the Winter Court was coming toward her now. She heard the whisper of a blade being drawn from a scabbard. Fachtna.

  “You vicious, feral child,” snarled Liadan. “I show you your heart’s desire, and you spit in my face? You have been offered more than any mortal ever has, and you insult me?!”

  Soft white boots crunched through the snow to stop by Maddy’s head. A silver blade hovered just by her ear. Liadan leaned down and placed her hand over Maddy’s heart. Maddy almost blacked out. She listened to her own screams as if from a distance. Her heart withered in her chest, the ice sending shock after shock through it. Liadan pulled her hand away, and Maddy retched.

  “I will give you one more chance before I hand you over to Fachtna,” said Liadan. “It’s a very simple choice to make: give me what I want, and I will give you your heart’s desire; refuse me, and you die.”

  Maddy’s hand went to her side, and she felt something in her jacket pocket shift beneath her fingertips.

  “I can have anything I want?” she asked, her voice small and trembling.

  “Anything you want,” said Liadan, her face almost softening, but a glint of triumph flashing cold in her gaze.

  Slowly Maddy unzipped her jacket pocket and slid her hand inside. “Do you know what I really want?” she said.

  “Tell me, child,” said Liadan, leaning closer, “and I will make it so.”

  Maddy turned her head so she could whisper into the faerie’s curled ear.

  “Shelves.”

  Liadan stared at her, her eyes wide with disbelief, just as Maddy lifted her hand to her mouth and swallowed a fistful of iron filings. Flat on her back on the mound, Maddy could feel the vibrations of lingering magic. She concentrated on the hot rage that bubbled up from the pit of her stomach and flooded her throat, melting the iron filings, turning them to a liquid that flooded her veins, pushing back the cold and the pain.

  “What have you done?” said Liadan, as she scrambled away from her. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”

  Maddy lifted her hand and watched the iron turn her veins gray. Her skin pulsed as the iron leached out of her pores, and even her eyes changed as a gray film covered her pupils and tainted everything she looked at.

  She sat up and laughed, a hollow sound that rang like a bell in her chest. Then she dug her fingers through the snow and hooked them into the soil beneath her, which softened before the hea
t of her touch. The faerie mound heaved and cracked as it tried to spit out her taste. All around, the faeries were in chaos, trying to stay in control of panicking mounts, who reared as the iron poison licked at their feet from the polluted earth. The fir dorocha were beating a hasty retreat, the hounds fleeing ahead of them. Liadan was climbing on to her own mount, an animal cloaked in silver to protect it from her cold. The terrified animal tried to spin away, but she yanked its head around viciously to face Maddy as the rest of her Winter Court stampeded for the opening in the mound. Blood foamed from its mouth and dripped on to its white chest. The only faerie who wasn’t running in panic was Fachtna, who stood and stared at Maddy with a frown on her face. Maddy thought she saw a flicker of fear in the faerie’s eyes. She grinned and got to her feet.

  “Not so tough now, are you?” she said.

  Liadan pointed a trembling finger at Maddy and screamed, “Kill her! Kill her now!”

  Maddy laughed. She flexed her arms as the molten iron melted the last of the cold in her body and swallowed the pain. “Come on then!” she yelled. “Come and have a go, if you think you’re hard enough!”

  She barely had time to raise her arm to protect herself as Fachtna’s sword came crashing down.

  She grunted with surprise and staggered back, sparks flying as the blade scraped against her skin. Fachtna came at Maddy, swinging and stabbing and driving her back toward the mound opening. Maddy couldn’t stand under the force of the faerie’s blows, and she began to crumble to her knees. Fachtna raised her sword as if to strike down, and as Maddy raised her arm to ward her off again, the faerie kicked her hard, throwing her on to her back. She planted a foot on Maddy’s chest and raised her sword.

  The lightening from Maddy’s world lit up Fachtna’s face as she gripped the pommel with both hands. She bared her triangular teeth, her wings stiff and quivering behind her as her muscles bunched to drive the blade into Maddy’s throat.

  “You can’t kill me!” screamed Maddy. “Not with the iron in me!”

  “Let’s find out,” said Fachtna as she hurled the blade downward. Maddy caught it in her hands and tried to hang on, the metal screaming and her skin sparking as Fachtna forced it through her palms. As Maddy’s gray hands slid up toward the hilt, she lunged forward, letting the point of the sword bend against her skin, and she grabbed Fachtna’s wrist.

  The effect was electrifying. The sword slid from Fachtna’s frozen fingers and toppled from Maddy’s one-handed grip. The faerie began to scream, a high-pitched noise like a rabbit in a trap. Where Maddy’s iron fingers grasped her, the skin turned black and began to blister and bubble. Fachtna collapsed on to the earth and twisted and kicked in an attempt to shake Maddy off.

  One booted foot caught Maddy a sharp blow in the ribs, and she grunted and lost her grip on Fachtna’s wrist. The faerie spun round to face her, panting. She went for one of the knives strapped across her chest, but when Maddy shouted, “Stop!” Fachtna paused, her breath hissing through her filed teeth.

  “It’s over,” said Maddy. “I made it home before you could catch me. Keep your word. Let me go.”

  Fachtna narrowed her eyes at her. “You’re not home yet,” she snarled.

  “Yes, I am,” said Maddy. She stretched out her hand, palm up. “Look.”

  The snow tumbled out of the air now, fatter and heavier. It was quickly turning to slush. As Fachtna turned her sharp face up to the sky, it began to pelt her with raindrops. The gray began to leak away from Maddy’s skin.

  “I think someone’s been playing tricks on you,” said Maddy. “Time has passed a lot quicker out here than in your world. The sun is coming up and the Samhain Fesh is over. This earth is in my world now. Keep your word.”

  Fachtna glared at her. For a moment, Maddy thought the faerie would still try to slide a blade into her now soft throat as the magic faded and the iron retreated back to the filings in her stomach. But Fachtna turned away without a word, picked up her sword, and followed her comrades into the mound, her injured hand curled against her chest. She walked into the darkness without a backward glance. Liadan hovered by the entrance and hissed “Coward” at her retreating back. She turned her dead white gaze on Maddy.

  “I’ll find you again, Maddy, mark my words,” she spat. “You are a burden on those who love you, a walking curse. Hide under a mountain of iron, and I will still find the hate and anger that boil around you, and I will pull you loose, like a badger from its sett. And you know what we do with badgers, don’t you?” She smiled her hideous smile, before yanking the reins and spurring her mount into the darkness of the mound.

  Maddy stood up on the crushed and bloodied grass, not daring to believe it was over. Long fingers of sunlight trickled through the lower reaches of the trees as the sun rose. The air was filled with a rumbling noise as the mound began to close over. Granda ran past her with the howling changeling, which he flung into the dark just as the earth sealed itself. As weakness spread through Maddy, Granda rushed to catch her as she fainted. The last thing she remembered was vomiting up the iron filings.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Maddy was standing in the village square a few days later, throwing a stick for George with Stephen, when a shadow fell across her. She smiled at the outline of antlers in the grass in front of her and turned around.

  “Hiya, Seamus,” she said.

  Seamus Hegarty smiled. “How are you feeling, Maddy?”

  “Not too bad, considering I’ve had your wife tenderizing me,” she said.

  “And the wound in your shoulder?”

  “It’s scabbing over,” she said. “It still hurts like mad, but you know, it could be worse.”

  “That it could,” said Seamus.

  They stood there in silence while Stephen squealed with delight, his chubby chocolate-covered hands snatching at the terrier’s tail. George’s tongue lolled around the stick as he ran rings around the toddler.

  “How’s the wee man?” asked Seamus, nodding at Stephen.

  Maddy frowned. “So-so,” she said. “He doesn’t seem to remember anything, but he has been having nightmares.”

  Seamus grunted. “He’ll be OK,” he said. “Children that small forget quickly. Has anyone been asking any questions?”

  “No, but that has more to do with the fact that we got back on Halloween night,” she said. “Handy that, seeing as it ties in with the whole theory that Stephen’s been sleepwalking. I could have sworn we were in that mound for at least two days.”

  “Very handy,” agreed Seamus, folding his arms across his chest and clamming up again. Maddy rolled her eyes.

  “Come on, spit it out—how did you manage that?” she demanded.

  “Time doesn’t move in a straight line, the way you people think it does,” he said. “It’s a circle, and on the night of the Samhain Fesh, it collapses into chaos. When there’s chaos, you can change all the rules.”

  “So I’ve heard,” said Maddy. She thought for a little while, working up the courage for her next question.

  “So, any chance you’re going to get a divorce any time soon?”

  Seamus gave her a look from the corner of his eye. “Things are bit more complicated than that.”

  “That sounds hopeful,” she said. “That’s the kind of thing people say when they are getting a divorce. Along with, ‘Mommy and Daddy still really love you.’”

  “And how would you know?”

  “I’ve got friends.”

  “Have you indeed?”

  Maddy blushed. “Yeah, well, I have some now. Things have gotten a bit better lately.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  She looked at him and grinned.

  “You know what I’ve come to talk to you about, don’t you, Maddy?”

  Her smile faded and she nodded. “Granda said you might be dropping by to have a word.” George came bounding up to her and dropped the stick at her feet. Stephen clutched at her jeans, leaving dirty smears on the denim, and he peeped shyly at Seamus from aroun
d Maddy’s thigh. Maddy bent and picked up the stick, and as she hefted it in her hand, George twirled on his back legs with excitement.

  “Stephen, do you think you can run faster than George?” asked Maddy, stroking his sweaty blond hair back from his forehead. Stephen nodded eagerly. “If I throw this stick, do you think you can beat George to it?”

  “A race?” asked Stephen, his face lighting up.

  “Exactly, a race,” said Maddy. “If you win, you get another square of chocolate.”

  “Yay!”

  “OK, ready . . . steady . . . GO!” Maddy swung her arm back and flung the stick as hard as she could. George tore after it, Stephen running awkwardly in his wake.

  “How much chocolate has he had already?” asked Seamus.

  Maddy turned to glare at him. “Nowhere near enough to make up for everything that’s happened to him.”

  “Fair enough,” said Seamus, looking embarrassed.

  Maddy watched Stephen’s bright hair as he stumbled after George. She kept her gaze fixed on the little boy as she said, “Tell me quick, before he comes back.”

  “Your eyes are open now, and you are Seeing,” said Seamus. “That makes you a target. You’ve got to keep yourself safe and mind the rules. You know what goes on around here now, and solitary faeries are always around. There’s no telling what they might do, when they are not part of a court and have no monarch to control them,” said Seamus.

  “Is Stephen in any danger?” she asked. “Will they try to take him again?”

  “Stephen’s safe enough,” said Seamus. “He was never the one Liadan wanted in the first place. They’ve been watching you, Maddy. They knew you would come after him. And I can’t be looking after you every second of the day.”

  She shrugged. “I know.”

  The autumn sun was warm on their faces, and the shouts of children playing circled them. George was crouched in front of Stephen, teasing the child with the stick. Every time Stephen made a grab for it, the dog whirled away, only to crouch down again, tail wagging.