The Feral Child Read online

  “I’ve never made a claim on being Irish—I’m a Londoner,” said Maddy stiffly.

  “London is where you lived. This is where you are from,” said Granda.

  Maddy shrugged. She wasn’t getting into this argument again. “What about it?”

  “According to the old tales, the boundaries between the faerie realm, Tír na nÓg, and the human world break down around now. It means faeries are stronger, and they can walk among us. So, just for a little while . . .”

  “I know, don’t go into the castle. I don’t know why you can’t just say that, instead of making up all this faerie stuff. I’m not a baby.”

  “I do tell you, Maddy, all the time, but you don’t pay attention.”

  “I don’t get scared by the faerie stories either, but it doesn’t stop you from telling them.”

  Granda sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He only did that when he was trying really hard to be patient and not yell. “Just this once, Maddy, listen to me and keep yourself safe. Anything could happen in those grounds, and no one would know where you were.”

  “OK,” she said in a small voice.

  Her grandfather went to leave the room, but he turned with his hand on the doorknob.

  “There is one other rule, Maddy. Well, it’s more of a warning really.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Whatever faeries promise you, whatever they try to tempt you with, it’s not real. You have to trust your heart, not your eyes, and turn your feet for home.”

  “Cheers. I’ll remember that as I try to sleep in the dark.”

  “Good night, love. Sleep well.”

  “I’m going to have nightmares after all that,” Maddy muttered to George as the bedroom door clicked shut behind Granda, but the terrier was already snoring.

  Great, she thought. I don’t have earplugs.

  Chapter Three

  Maddy was having trouble sleeping. Her arm was hurting, and she was still upset that Granda didn’t seem to be interested in punishing the boy who had done this to her. He always stuck up for her, so she didn’t understand why he wasn’t marching around to John’s house and banging on the door. Maybe he’s finally getting sick of me, she thought. She didn’t want to live here, but if her grandparents didn’t want her anymore, it meant living with one of her mother’s sisters. Maddy fancied that even less.

  She lay on her back and listened to the sound of the village. There was no sidewalk outside her grandparents’ house, and passing cars hummed by right outside her window. The beams of their headlights penetrated the thin cotton of her bedroom curtains and swept across the walls. Now and then she could hear talking and laughter and the click of a woman’s heels as people walked back from the pub. One couple stopped for a snog, and Maddy gagged at the wet sound. Why would anyone let someone stick their tongue in their mouth? she thought. Gross! George had his nose tucked in her armpit, and the amount of noise coming out of such a small dog was unbelievable. His nose whistled at the end of each snore, and he was farting—a lot. Maddy was keeping the sheet stretched tight across her face to give her some breathable air. Having him in bed with her wasn’t such a treat after all.

  She heard the creak of her grandparents’ bed through the wall behind her head as they settled down for the night. The pub closed, the chip shop shut its doors and turned off the lights, and the night grew dark and silent. But Maddy could still only doze fitfully. The glow of the streetlight outside threw the shadows of the trees that lined the square over her bed and walls. She watched shadow branches reach for her with knotted arthritic fingers, skinny versions of Granny’s tortured hands. The wind grew stronger and tossed the branches into strange shapes, but one kept appearing over and over again: a witch’s face, with a hooked nose and chin and a toothless mouth. Maddy stared at it with wide eyes that were scratchy from lack of sleep. She kept telling herself it was just a tree, but the way that toothless mouth muttered and gabbled at her as the wind rose to a moan made her feel like a toddler who was frightened of the dark.

  But she must have slept eventually because she was startled awake by George’s rumbling growl and a weird noise at the window. Something was scraping the glass, long strokes down the length of the pane that hissed in the quiet of her room. She put a hand on George to get him to be quiet, but the dog still kept his black lips peeled back from his teeth as Maddy crawled across the bed to the windowsill. Her curtains were hung on a pole, leaving a slight gap between the fabric and the window, enough for her to peer out without touching the cloth, if she pressed her face hard against the wall.

  She could feel the cold puff of a draft on her lips and see a sliver of the outside world with her left eye, the pearly glow of the white-painted sill and a slice of the velvety dark beyond it. But it was enough. There was someone at her window all right, someone with a long white hand that seemed to have too many joints and yellow pointed fingernails. The hand rose and trailed the tips of the fingernails down the glass, over and over again. Maddy’s eye rose and fell with the hand as she huddled against the wall, her skin in goosebumps from the cold. Then it stopped. The hand fell out of sight and there was silence. Maddy held her breath, her heart thudding in her ears as she listened for any noise that would tell her who was outside.

  Suddenly a bright green eye appeared right in front of her and stared into her own.

  Maddy screamed and scrambled back from the window as George rushed toward it, barking. She grabbed him and clamped a hand over his muzzle. But George was ready for a fight, and his hair bristled against her arm while his whole body jerked with imploding barks. Maddy’s heart hammered in her chest, and she caught her breath in shallow gulps. She could hear her grandparents muttering and the bed creaking as they turned over in their sleep. Then, there it was, a horrible sound.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Whoever was outside her window, they knew she was listening.

  Tap, tap, tap, went the fingernails against the glass.

  Maddy listened to the persistent tapping and thought about that green eye. She grinned. She had a good idea who it belonged to. It was that boy from the castle. What was he doing, creeping about in the dark, trying to scare her at this time of night? But she was going to show him. If he thought she was a girly girl who was going to cry, he had another thing coming. She let George go. He lay flat against the bed and vibrated with growls as she eased her legs over the side and stepped across to the window. She clenched the curtains in her fists and wrenched them open.

  She jumped back as if she had been burned, colliding with the chest of drawers next to her bed. A corner scraped her thigh, and she clamped her hand over her mouth to stop herself crying out in pain and fear.

  It was John all right. But he looked very, very different. There was the red hair, the cute freckles, and the green eyes. But the face was pointed into a little muzzle, and his upturned nose looked like a pig’s snout. The eyes were cruel and slanted, and the hands looked veiny and old. His ears were long, pointed, and tipped with soft, fine hair. They swiveled toward her like a bat’s as his nose snuffled at the window. He pressed a knobbly hand flat against the glass and smiled at her with long hooked teeth that seemed too big for the rosebud mouth.

  “Come out and play with me,” he said. “I’m so lonely in the dark.”

  This is not happening, thought Maddy, as her heart gave up running and jumped into her throat to hide. This is just not happening! Granda was right!

  Tap, tap, tap again with the cruel nails that looked more like claws. “Let me in,” he whispered. “Open the window, and we can play.”

  She shook her head and whimpered into her fingers. The smile on the faerie’s face faded, and then he spotted the iron cross hanging over her nightdress. He hissed, his face twisting with anger.

  “So you See me now, little girl,” he said, pressing his face against the glass and fogging it with his breath. “Who gave you the iron? Whom do you know who has the Sight? Tell me now, and I’ll be merciful and only blind you.”
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  “Go away,” squeaked Maddy, her teeth chattering with fear. “Go away.”

  He snarled at her through the glass, and then his eyes flicked to the left. He looked back at her, smiled an evil smile, and then suddenly dropped out of sight.

  She stared at the blank window, waiting for him to pop up again like a demented jack-in-the-box. She didn’t want to get too close to the glass. George cocked his head to one side, listening, his entire body stiff. She couldn’t hear anything, and nothing moved outside, but she didn’t believe he would give up so easily. And what had he spotted? What did he know that she didn’t? Did he find a way in? She shivered, her pajamas sticking to the cold sweat on her back.

  George began to growl again, and then she heard it, a soft crooning noise, like someone singing a lullaby. Her skin crawled as she touched the window’s cold surface, but she forced herself to press her face against it so she could see what he was up to.

  There he was, just a yard to the left, outside the neighbors’ house, crooning a wordless song and swaying in the moonlight. She heard a child’s giggle, and her blood ran cold as it dawned on her whose window the creature was singing at.

  Stephen. Stephen Forest is listening to him.

  “No,” she whispered. “Please, no.” She heard the unmistakable sound of a sash window being opened, and she saw the faerie smile and hold out his hand, still singing. A little white arm, still with traces of baby fat, reached out and grasped the fingers.

  “NO!” Maddy began to scream and pound the window. “No, leave him alone. LEAVE HIM ALONE!”

  Chapter Four

  Maddy ran into her grandparents’ room and yelled loud enough to wake the dead.

  “Get up, get up, you have to help him!”

  Her grandparents looked completely bewildered and a little scared, blinking their eyes against the sudden light. Maddy flicked the switch on and off really fast to make sure they got the message.

  “For goodness sake, child, whatever is the matter?” said Granny as she fumbled for her glasses.

  “That boy, the one who beat me up, he followed me home. He’s taken Stephen. GET UP!”

  Her grandparents tumbled out of bed and staggered after her, pulling on their dressing gowns as they came into her room, where George was going ballistic. His legs were tense with rage, and his volley of barks was lifting him off his feet. Maddy ran to the window and pointed to the disappearing figure of the twisted boy as he hurried toward the castle grounds. He was hunched over, and Maddy thought she could see the gleam of Stephen’s blond hair in his arms as they passed beneath a streetlight.

  “There, see, it’s that boy, only he’s not a boy,” she said. “He wanted me to let him in, but I wouldn’t, and then he went to Stephen’s window, and Stephen listened to him, and now he’s taken him. Look, look, over there! He’s heading for the castle!”

  Granny peered out the window. “I can’t see who that is, Maddy, but I tell you now, I can’t see Stephen. George, WILL YOU SHUT UP! And what do you mean, he isn’t a boy?”

  “He was really weird-looking. His face had gone all funny, and he had these long pointed ears like you see on pixies.” She looked at Granda. “He saw the cross around my neck and asked if I could ‘See’ him now, and he wanted to know whom I knew that had ‘the Sight.’ You knew all along, didn’t you? That’s why you wouldn’t go after him for hurting me. He said he’s going to blind me!”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” asked Granny.

  “Don’t you get it? That boy is a faerie, and Granda knew all along. That’s why he gave me this cross.”

  Granny glared at Granda. “This is what happens when you fill the child’s head up with foolish stories right before bedtime.”

  “I was not dreaming this! And we’ve got to help Stephen.”

  “Maddy, it is four in the morning. You were having a bad dream. Now will you please go back to bed and let us all get some sleep!” said Granny.

  “Oh the hell with this!” Maddy shoved past her Granda and ran for the front door.

  “Maddy, what has gotten into you?” said Granny as she tried to pull Maddy away from the bolts that secured the door at night.

  “I’m getting him back before it’s too late!” yelled Maddy, twisting in Granny’s grip. “Let go of me!”

  Granda cleared his throat. “Maybe I should go next door and check that everything is OK? It’s not normal for the dog to react like that.”

  “Oh yes, listen to the dog!” said Maddy. “What am I, invisible? You need Lassie to back up everything I say?”

  “Maddy, will you stop being so dramatic?” said Granny. Then she turned to glare at her husband. “Have you gone mad? You can’t be waking people up this time of the night because a child and a dog are upset. Maddy had a bad dream, that’s all. And that smelly devil of an animal shouldn’t have been in here in the first place!”

  “Still, I’m going to check,” muttered Granda. “I’ll sleep better if I know everything is all right.” He slipped his feet into the shoes he always left by his armchair, pulled his overcoat on over his pajamas, and unlocked the front door.

  “You’ll have the neighbors looking sideways at us, getting people out of their beds in the middle of the night over a child’s nightmare,” Granny called after him.

  Maddy was relieved someone was finally listening to her, but, to her horror, she started crying.

  Granny sat on the bed and pulled her against her big soft chest and patted her back. “You’re getting yourself into a terrible state, Maddy. Once you know Stephen is safe and sound in his bed, will you go back to sleep?”

  Maddy nodded, sick with misery and fear. She wished it was going to be that easy. She cringed inside, her stomach icy, as Granny kissed her cheek and cuddled her close.

  She heard Granda knock on the Forests’ door. After what seemed like hours, Stephen’s father opened the door, sounding sleepy and annoyed. Granda explained what Maddy had seen and asked if they could check.

  “The children are fine, Bat. I think I’d know if someone were trying to get at them,” she heard Mr. Forest say.

  “Please check, Michael—the child’s window is open, and it’s a cold night,” said Granda.

  There was a moment of silence, and then Maddy squeezed her eyes shut as Michael Forest’s agonized shout tore at her heart. As Stephen’s mother began to scream, her granny held her tighter, her old heart racing against Maddy’s cheek.

  “Sacred Heart, Maddy,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “What on earth has happened?”

  The cottage blazed with light and hummed with people. Stephen’s three older brothers were huddled around the fire Granny had lit, while their mother sat in Granda’s armchair. Mary Forest’s face was red and swollen from crying, and she curled into herself, rocking with anxiety. Granny was dressed and making endless cups of tea and sandwiches. Every now and then she would pause at the younger woman’s chair to take a cold cup of tea from her hands, replace it with a fresh one, and stroke her hair. Maddy could hear the crackle and squawk of police radios in the kitchen and outside their front door. All the people who lived around the square were awake now, the men getting ready to search for Stephen. Dawn was still some way off, but it was so busy it felt like the middle of the afternoon, even if everyone’s faces were tired and white beneath the electric lights. The old women who always seemed to circle like scavengers at weddings and funerals had turned up en masse, clutching their coal-scuttle handbags like weapons. They were sucking down tea and gossiping like crazy, swapping horror stories, oblivious to Stephen’s mother.

  The worst was being interviewed by the police in front of them all. Maddy watched lots of TV, and she was pretty sure she should have had a specially trained family-liaison officer and a bit of privacy, but what she got was fat old Sergeant Liam O’Leary, who she was sure couldn’t catch a cold. She tried to tell the truth, but once she started telling her story out loud in a room full of people who looked increasingly angry with her, she began to
realize how it all sounded.

  “I was in the Blarney Castle, walking the dog, when this boy came out of nowhere,” she said. “He was bit strange, and then he grabbed me and said if I stopped struggling, it would be a lot easier.”

  “What did he mean by that?” said Sergeant O’Leary, writing in a notebook.

  “He was trying to kidnap me,” said Maddy.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, I’m not a police officer, but I’m pretty confident that someone’s trying to drag you away against your will is abduction,” said Maddy.

  “Maddy!” Granny barked a warning.

  Maddy scowled while Sergeant O’Leary sighed and scribbled some more notes. “And what did this boy look like?”

  “About my height, skinny, really green eyes, red hair, and freckles,” said Maddy.

  “And you say he was the same boy who was outside your window just before Stephen Forest was discovered to have gone missing?”

  “Well, yes . . .” said Maddy. “But he didn’t look the same.”

  Sergeant O’Leary raised an eyebrow. “Oh? How so?”

  “Well . . .” Maddy was horrified to feel herself blushing, but she had to tell him. “His face had gone all weird. He had, like, a snout, and his hands were really long, and he had long tufty ears . . .” Her voice trailed off into silence as she realized how stupid she sounded.

  Sergeant O’Leary looked down at his notes and sucked his teeth. “Your granny says your granda was telling you faerie tales before bedtime?”

  “Yeah, he was, but I know what I saw!” said Maddy, her voice sharp in anger. She bit her lip as Granny sent a look her way.

  Sergeant O’Leary looked hard at her. “Do you think you saw a faerie, Maddy?”

  “Well . . . I don’t know for sure,” she stammered. “But people don’t look like that, and that is what I saw. I was wide awake. I wasn’t dreaming it.”