The Feral Child Read online

  George could sense something coming that he wouldn’t like, and he cowered as she gripped him between her knees. She pinched the scruff of his neck between her thumb and forefinger and cut into the soft fatty flesh there. The dog yammered and twisted in her grip, but she held him tight until some of his blood had stained her hand and then she wiped it on the snow-covered mound, leaving a watery pink stain.

  “Sorry, boy,” she whispered, as she dropped the knife and hugged the shocked animal close. She plastered his smelly head with kisses and rummaged in the backpack again. She found the biscuits and fed him one to cheer him up.

  “That’s it?” said Roisin.

  “Of course,” said Maddy. “You didn’t think I was going to kill him, did you?”

  Roisin sagged with relief and flopped down next to Maddy. “Now what?”

  “I don’t know,” said Maddy glumly. “This is about as far as my plan goes.”

  They sat in the dark, waiting for something to happen. Maddy was oblivious to her cold, wet bum. She had no idea what to do next.

  Then she heard sounds of thrashing leaves and snapping bark as something made its way toward them through the bushes. The hair went up on George’s back, and he began to growl. Roisin sucked in a breath and grabbed Maddy’s arm.

  “It sounds big,” said Maddy, her mouth dry with fear. “Did Google say what the guide would be?”

  Roisin shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears.

  Something leaped out of the undergrowth at them. Maddy and Roisin screamed and scrambled backward, before they heard the high, mocking laughter.

  “Danny!” said Roisin. “You scared me.”

  “Shouldn’t be out here then, should you,” he sneered. “Mammy’s good little girl is in a lot of trouble.”

  “You haven’t told Mam, have you?” Roisin’s voice filled with terror.

  “I didn’t have to. Granny woke up and found you gone, and she called Mam. Half the village is out looking for you, and Mam is going mental,” said Danny, delighted. “The two of you are so dead. Granda isn’t going to stick up for you this time, Maddy.”

  “How long have you been following us?” she asked.

  “Ages.” He grinned. “I wanted to see if you were going to do us all a favor and take my fat sister with you when you ran away.” Roisin’s face crumpled, and she huddled into herself.

  Maddy looked at Danny, who still had that evil grin on his face. “You git,” she said quietly, and then she took a swing and felt her fist connect with Danny’s nose. She felt the brief comfort that hitting someone always brought, before Danny hit her back, then cannoned into her with all his weight. The breath went out of Maddy’s body in a whoosh as her back jarred against the ground. She coughed and wheezed as Danny straddled her, aiming lazy punches at her face. She warded off a couple of blows before bringing her knee up hard into his back, breaking his concentration long enough for her to land a good left hook straight on the jelly of his eye. He yelled and clapped a hand to his face, while Roisin shouted at them to stop. Then Maddy bucked her hips hard and punched Danny in the chest, heaving him off her. As he crashed to the ground, she sprang up and sat on his chest, twisting the cotton of his sweatshirt in one fist while she raised the other to bring it down hard on his face. But before she could drop her knuckles, she felt a large, strong hand clamp around her wrist.

  “Here, here, enough of this!” a loud voice boomed as huge hands lifted her up into the air and shook her by the scruff of the neck. She glared at Danny around the torso of a giant of a man and had to be shaken a couple of times before she stopped trying to make a grab for him.

  “Enough of this! What’s going on here?” boomed the man. He bent to take a look at Maddy’s face. “I know you—you’re Bat Kiely’s granddaughter, aren’t you?”

  Maddy recognized Seamus Hegarty. She was bound to get in trouble now.

  “What are you doing in here at night? You know you’re not supposed to be here.”

  “Nothing,” said Maddy.

  “She’s trying to sacrifice the dog,” said Danny. “It’s a sick Halloween joke. She’s trying to raise the Devil.”

  “Shut up!” yelled Maddy, and she went for him again, lashing out with her feet as Seamus pulled her back. She kept kicking even when he shook her so hard her teeth hurt, and then she found herself being lifted off the ground, and the collar of her jacket cut into her windpipe. She felt the blood rush to her face, and she gasped and clawed at his hands, her legs kicking empty air. She heard Roisin scream.

  “Putting blood on the mound, eh?” he growled. His eyes glowed up at her, and she saw his pupils were round and silver like full moons. “Little girls should be very careful what they wish for.” She thought she saw the shadow of antlers over his head, a full spread like a stag’s, before everything went black.

  And then it was very, very quiet.

  Chapter Nine

  Maddy opened her eyes to find herself lying flat on her back, the backpack digging into her spine. The sky above her was a flat metallic gray, but there was no rain, no snow. The ground felt funny.

  She sat up quickly in a flurry of what looked like black sand, and millions of particles rose to streak the air around her like smoke. They took an age to spin and fall back to the ground, their jet facets glittering and twinkling in the dim light. Overhead, a pale sun burned weakly through the gray haze, and the black sand stretched as far as she could see. She got up slowly, sand bouncing and swirling in time with each movement of her legs and arms, clinging to the air around her. She trudged to where she could see Roisin and Danny lying on the ground. They groaned and began to sit up.

  “Where are we?” said Danny.

  “Where’s George?” said Roisin. “George? George? C’mere, boy!”

  Maddy felt her heart sink. Then she looked around and spied a little splash of white against the black. She stumbled forward, feeling heavy-limbed and dazed, to where George sat staring listlessly into space. He looked up at her as she bent to pick him up, and he wagged his tail half-heartedly, curling into her stomach as she zipped him into her jacket. Roisin glared at Maddy as she flopped back down next to her, George’s little face peeking out from under her chin.

  “OK, so where are we then?” she demanded.

  Maddy shrugged. “I haven’t a clue. You’re supposed to be the expert.”

  “Why? Because I looked some stuff up on the Internet?” said Roisin. “Where are we? I want to go home.”

  “If you didn’t want to be here, then why did you follow me?” said Maddy.

  “I didn’t know you were doing . . . this. Besides, I didn’t want you to get into trouble,” said Roisin.

  “More like you couldn’t bear to be left out of anything,” said Maddy. “No way anyone can do anything around here without having you tag along, is there? Why don’t you take a day off from yourself and—”

  “WILL THE TWO OF YOU SHUT UP AND TELL ME WHAT IS GOING ON?” roared Danny. “Where the bloody hell are we?”

  Maddy shot Roisin a look out of the corner of her eye. It was going to be very embarrassing explaining all this, and she could see Roisin’s cheeks turning pink already. She told Danny the whole story, bracing herself for his reaction.

  “Faeries!” he spat. “I know you’re a dreamy eejit, Roisin, with your head always stuck in a book, but I thought you had a little bit more sense, Maddy. Why not say little green men had carried him off?”

  “You’re right, Danny, it’s all in my head,” said Maddy, as she crossed her arms over a whimpering George. “I’m making the whole thing up. That’s why we’re in the middle of desert full of oddly behaved black sand. It’s because I’m bonkers.”

  Danny glared at her, but he couldn’t help it—his eyes slid away to look at the ground and he went quiet.

  “Have you noticed there’s no weather here?” said Roisin, as she lifted her hands from the sand and watched it swirl around her fingertips.

  “What are you on about now?” asked Danny impatient
ly.

  “Think about it,” said Roisin, still staring at her hands. “It looks like we’re in a desert, but I don’t feel hot or cold—or anything at all, to be honest.”

  Maddy thought about this for a second and then licked her finger and held it up. “No wind,” she said.

  Danny sniffed. “No smells either,” he said.

  “This is a nothing place,” said Roisin.

  Danny and Maddy looked at each other in panic.

  “A ‘nothing place’? What’s a ‘nothing place’?” said Danny. “Are we in purgatory?”

  “I dunno. Are faeries Catholics?” asked Roisin.

  A cool breeze sprang up. The sand fought against it but was driven back through their hair and clothes.

  “There’s someone out there,” said Maddy, pointing straight ahead. They squinted into the distance and saw something white reflecting the rays of the weak sun.

  It was moving toward them, its shape becoming clearer until Maddy could see it was a white stag with a massive spread of antlers. A heavy gold collar hung around his neck that winked in the light. The creature came to a stop in front of them, his velvety nose twitching in the scentless air.

  The stag looked at Maddy and lowered his head until she was gazing directly into his wet brown eyes. She gulped as she realized that she couldn’t see pupils—just twin images of a full moon in a dark sky filled with scudding clouds.

  Ask me for help, said a voice in her head. She stared at the stag in shock.

  “Did anyone else hear that?” said Danny, his voice shaking.

  Ask me for help.

  “Maddy, he’s talking to you. Say something,” hissed Roisin.

  “Like what?”

  “Asking where we are would be a blinding start,” said Danny.

  “Um, where are we?” she asked the stag, who still hadn’t blinked.

  You are on the border of what you know and what you believe.

  “Are we in the faerie mound?”

  Yes.

  “This doesn’t look like Tír na nÓg,” said Roisin. “None of the books and faerie tales I read ever mentioned a desert.”

  What you seek is within your reach. But until you believe in it, you cannot pass the border.

  “Can we go back?” asked Danny.

  Only if you know the way.

  Maddy looked around them at the expanse of desert that stretched as far as the eye could see. There was nothing to break the monotony—no road, no landmark, not even a lump of sand-blasted, wind-scoured rock.

  “Do you know the way?” asked Maddy.

  The stag said nothing.

  “Are you our guide?” asked Roisin.

  The stag lifted his head up high and looked down his nose at them with his front feet neatly placed together.

  What you already know is your guide and your map.

  Maddy walked up to the stag, who inclined his head regally. “So if we want to go forward into Tír na nÓg, we have to believe that we will walk into it, right?”

  Yes.

  “So all we have to do is wish it really hard and it will appear?”

  You have to see it and believe it enough to step into it.

  “Will this map also help us get home?”

  The stag stood still as a statue as the soft breeze played around his hoofs.

  “This is madness,” said Danny to the stag. “No offense, but we can’t just click our heels and say, ‘There’s no place like home.’”

  “Well, we can’t phone someone to come and pick us up either,” said Maddy.

  “How do you know?” said Danny, his face lighting up with hope. He pulled his mobile from the back pocket of his jeans and checked the screen. His face fell. “No signal.”

  “Shocking,” said Maddy.

  “Can we trust you?” asked Roisin in a small voice. The stag swung his antlers to look at her. “I don’t mean to insult you, but I have no idea if you are a friend or an enemy, so how can I simply go where you tell me to go? How do I know I can get home by the path you want me to take?”

  I did not think that going home was your purpose. Going home seems like a very poor sort of quest.

  “Home is always the goal in stories, isn’t it?” asked Maddy. “Heroes are always trying to go home or save home, so it seems good enough to me. If I do what you say, can I go home?”

  The stag cocked his head at Maddy. How do I feel to you? Fair or foul?

  Maddy stared up into the brown eyes. “You feel fair,” she whispered.

  “What are you saying, Maddy?” asked Roisin.

  “I think he’s asking us to trust our instincts,” she replied.

  They all stood for a moment and looked at the stag, their breathing harsh and ragged in the silence. Power radiated from him like an electrical field, and Maddy found herself struggling against the temptation to kneel.

  “Will you come with us?” she asked.

  This is a task I cannot help you with.

  “Why not?”

  Tonight, time is in chaos. My power ebbs. The stag shook his head, his twin moons blotted by cloud. But I offer you the way into the kingdom of the Tuatha de Dannan.

  “If you are not strong enough, what chance do we have?” asked Maddy.

  You are stronger than you think. There is magic in the old ways, in the human stories. What you know will bring you great power.

  “I have no idea what that means,” said Maddy.

  The moons came out from behind their clouds, and the stag’s eyes shone silver. You will.

  Maddy looked at Roisin and Danny. They both shrugged.

  “When I used to think about Tír na nÓg,” she said softly, “I imagined it as a place that shimmered, where you were never hungry or cold, and flowers bloomed everywhere, and faeries flew about like birds. Is that what you mean?”

  “I always thought it would be a place of everlasting twilight,” said Roisin, a blush stealing over her cheeks. “White flowers scattered through the grass and tall trees. Faerie halls covered in jewels, filled with music and singing.”

  See it.

  Maddy closed her eyes and reached back into her mind for memories that had faded over time, of a world she had once tumbled into with every book, every Christmas special on TV.

  “I think of dryads whose faces appear in the bark of trees and mermaids washing their hair in waterfalls,” said Roisin. “Winged horses with golden bridles and faeries singing in the forest.”

  “Dragons and animals that talk,” said Danny, blushing as Roisin stared at him.

  Maddy grinned as the breeze whipped itself up into a stiff wind, and in the distance the sand began to rise into the air. “Unicorns and maidens, faeries curled up in flowers, stars that sing, magic castles in the clouds . . .”

  “It’s working!” yelled Roisin, as the wind rose to a howl, tearing at their clothes, and the stag threw back his head to bugle at the sky.

  “Brownies and bogels, pixies and sprites, hollows hills bathed in candlelight!” yelled Maddy, excitement rising in all of them as the curtain of sand swept over them and the white stag disappeared from their sight.

  Chapter Ten

  Maddy had her eyes squeezed shut, and the first thing she felt was cold air billowing around her, wrapping her in its sharp embrace. After the tasteless air of the nowhere place, the scent of wet pine and crushed grass tickled her nostrils. Roisin gasped, sending butterflies whirling through Maddy’s stomach. Then she heard Danny say, “It’s beautiful!” and she opened her eyes.

  It was.

  They were standing on a grassy hilltop looking down on to dense forest. The sun hovered on the edge of the horizon, its dying rays sending prisms of light slicing through the crystal cold air to bathe them in shimmering colors. The forest canopy was covered in snow and in the distance before them, a white tower twisted into the sky. Blue mountains smudged the horizon beyond the tower, while a vast river wound away from it, cutting through the forest as it rushed toward the far horizon on their left. Gradually the ranks o
f trees thinned out, and a dry and barren land clung to the river banks. Lights twinkled among the trees, and they could hear singing, as pure and sweet as the highest notes of a violin, held in an aching treble. Flocks of birds wheeled above the treetops looking to roost, their iridescent feathers flashing jewel bright in the sunset. A breeze lifted from the treetops and danced toward them, wrapping their faces in a wild perfume. Maddy closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She could smell crushed flowers, leaf mold, pine needles and bark, feather and fur. It was as if the forest had breathed out. She opened her eyes and looked down and for a second saw her feet clad not in sneakers but tiny cloven hoofs. She blinked and the image was gone.

  Roisin started to laugh and held an arm up to the dancing light. The fractured rays slid down her skin in blue-hued bracelets. “We did it!” she cried. “We are actually in Tír na nÓg!” George wriggled down from her arms and ran about in circles, barking.

  Danny sat down hard on the snow-dappled grass. “Is this happening?” he said, his expression stunned as he looked around.

  “I don’t know,” said Maddy, her eyes wide. “It’s unbelievable.”

  “Oh, can’t you feel it?” said Roisin gleefully. She giggled and spun on her heels, arms flung out.

  “Feel what?” asked Maddy.

  “The magic in the air. It’s like licking a battery,” said Roisin. “The whole place hums with it. I feel so good, so good, so goooood!”

  As Roisin twirled and sang, her joy radiated out from her and lapped against Maddy like a physical wave. She began to giggle, and as she looked at Danny, his normally scowling face began to break into a smile. Seconds later they were all laughing on the hillside.

  “Hang on,” Roisin said, stopping in her tracks and frowning at something behind them. “Am I really seeing that?”

  Maddy twisted her head to look behind her, and with a shock she recognized the faerie mound on the Blarney Castle grounds. It topped the hill, dark and silent in the face of the sunset. Its shadows were unnatural, pooling around its feet and ringing it in darkness, rather than stretching away behind it.

  “That’s not the same mound, is it?” asked Danny.