The Dark Beloved Page 9

  ‘I know they did, Father. But then I got better.’ Why was Father Leahy telling her this old story about her own childhood? As far as he and Kilduff was concerned, the dying child had been her. No one in the town had seen the original Eva – that was why it had been so easy for her parents to pass the fairy child off as the human child.

  The priest said coolly, ‘There was only one man that your parents dared to let into the house, because they believed the power of God was stronger than the risk of infection. I prayed with them at her bedside for over an hour. I will never forget that little face – such a beautiful child, with short blonde hair and ice-blue eyes.’

  Aoife gazed at him steadily, the small hairs on the back of her neck rising.

  ‘Months later, Maeve O’Connor brought Eva to Mass. Not only was the little girl so full of life and health she couldn’t sit still, but she had bright red hair instead of blonde.’

  ‘Young children change—’

  He raised his hand to silence her. ‘I know. And the child had been sick. And I’d only seen her the once. That’s what I told myself. Until yesterday, when that woman showed me the picture she’d taken on her phone. And there was the face I had never forgotten. Those eyes – unforgettable. As pale as ice. Eva O’Connor – still only four years old.’

  Aoife stared at him, her heart beating very fast, a bird in a cage.

  He smiled at her briefly. ‘I may be a priest, Aoife, but I am a Mayo man. I know what happened eleven years ago. I know you are the changeling child.’

  After the shock, Aoife experienced a deep hot feeling of relief. At last, here was someone other than her parents who knew who she was. Someone she could talk to in confidence – because a priest couldn’t break the secrets of the confessional. Someone who could absolve her of past sins. Who could help her with the darkness.

  In the cold, stone silence of the church, the wooden man gazed down with His weary eyes. Was this how He had answered her prayer? Father Leahy was saying nothing, his own head tilted to one side in much the same way as the carved Jesus – waiting for her to speak.

  She blurted out: ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone, Father, but I have this power, and it bursts out of me if I sense danger, if I feel the need to protect someone. I haven’t done anything too terrible yet, but I’m scared I might. It’s like having something inside me that doesn’t know how to behave—’

  He interrupted, ‘Like an animal.’

  She stopped. Then said, uncomfortably, ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m not surprised by what you’re telling me.’

  ‘You’re not?’ This wasn’t quite the help she’d been looking for. And he had spoken so coldly. ‘What do you mean?’

  He said, ‘You are a fairy, Aoife. You are from a pagan race. You have not received God’s grace. You are not a Christian.’

  The feeling of relief drained away as fast as it had come. Something she had never understood before clicked into place. The hostility with which Father Leahy had watched her down the years. His hesitation over giving her the communion wafer. His narrow, suspicious gaze – the same one that rested on her now. You are not a Christian. She said, deeply offended, ‘I am a Christian, I’m a Catholic. I did my Holy Communion.’

  ‘You were not baptized.’

  ‘Yes, I was— Oh.’ It was true, the real Eva’s baptismal certificate wasn’t hers, any more than Eva’s birth certificate was hers. It had happened before the banshee came.

  Father Leahy’s dark, cold eyes rested on Aoife’s face. ‘If you wish me to help you, Aoife, and cast out this dark magic from your soul, you will have to believe in the one true God.’

  In her head, the inner tune piped up again: Your God says he’s the holy one, but you know he’s not the only one . . . She said loudly, to drown it out, ‘Of course I believe in Him!’

  Father Leahy bowed his head. ‘Then the next step is baptism, to purify your soul.’

  ‘Purify . . . ?’ The tune in her head redoubled in volume, singing crossly: Maybe he’s the phoney one!!

  The priest said thoughtfully, more to himself than to her, ‘With His help, I am certain I can make room in your heart for His glory. Didn’t Saint Patrick meet with the fairies and preach to them?’ He stood up, holding out his hand to usher her with him. ‘Come. Let us try what we can do to ensure you a place in heaven.’

  For a moment she was so angry at the implication that she was beyond God’s grace (how different was the priest behaving from Sinead?) that she nearly refused him and walked out. But at the same time she had come in here to beg God for help – and this seemed to be what was on offer, in answer to her prayer. She got to her feet, and followed him.

  The priest left her standing by the font, while he went to fetch the baptismal service. As soon as he’d disappeared into the vestry, she lifted the wooden lid to peep inside – the stone bowl was full of dimpled water. White mist rose from it, in the cold air. Would Father Leahy pour it over her head, like he did with the babies? The little ones always screamed their heads off. She dipped in a finger. Not too bad. Quite warm, actually, considering how cold the church was. Did the water get heated somehow, for christenings? It wasn’t a question she’d ever asked herself. Maybe in the vestry, Father Leahy had flicked on some switch. A few bubbles were rising to the surface, like an electric kettle only just starting to heat up. Hearing a noise from the vestry, she hastily resettled the lid and sat in the nearest pew.

  After her baptism, would she be a changed person? She felt a stab of fright – maybe her powers would disappear. (But wasn’t that what she wanted? Evil witch, Killian had called her.)

  Before she could think it through further, Father Leahy reappeared with a small leather book open in his hand. He lifted the lid off the font, beckoning Aoife to his side. She found herself walking towards him very slowly. Then she decided it was ridiculous to be afraid of a little water. Baptism was symbolic – a way of admitting her into the Catholic religion, so the priest could then advise her with a clear conscience.

  The wooden man gazed down.

  Father Leahy placed his hand on the back of her neck, saying rapidly in the flat, nasal monotone of his sermons: ‘Almighty and ever-living God, you sent your only Son into the world to cast out the spirit of evil. We pray for this child: set her free from original sin and send your Holy Spirit to dwell within her. We ask this through Christ our Lord.’

  Giving no warning, he pushed Aoife’s head towards the water. Without really meaning to, she pushed back against him. There were more bubbles rising now – bigger ones, and it was confusing. And the steam felt very warm on her face. The priest’s grip tightened further. His fingers were like pincers. ‘I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost . . .’

  Again, he thrust Aoife’s head down towards the water. Under her horrified eyes, the font was now bubbling furiously. She struggled, fought, cried out. Father Leahy pushed harder, a steely powerful hold on her neck, shouting: ‘Bless this water in which she will be baptized! We ask this through Christ our Lord!’

  ‘No! Stop! No!’ The steam was scalding her – she was going to be scarred for life . . .

  ‘Our Father in heaven, bless this child and rescue her from sin! I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy—’

  Exerting all her changeling strength, Aoife flung the priest from her just before he plunged her face into the boiling water. He crashed through the air, landing sprawled on the carpeted altar steps, crying out in shock and terror.

  Horrified, Aoife rushed to help him up. ‘Father, I’m so sorry, are you all right? Let me help you up—’

  But when she tried to get hold of him, he shrank away from her, crying, ‘Don’t touch me!’

  ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, Father. It was only because something went wrong with the water . . .’

  His eyes darted past her, then enlarged in utter horror. ‘God have mercy on our souls!’ The font was bubbling over, pouring boiling water across the floor, s
teaming in huge white clouds that filled the church. The priest shuffled frantically on his backside towards the altar, casting his eyes up to the giant wooden man. ‘Save me! Save your servant, O Lord! Our Father! Blessed Virgin! Cast out the power of Satan, the spirit of evil!’

  ‘Father . . .’

  Fumbling for the crucifix around his neck, he brandished it frantically at Aoife, the thin chain straining tightly around his neck. ‘Deliver us from the kingdom of darkness!’

  ‘Father, it’s only me, Aoife . . .’

  Panting, he huddled against the altar. ‘Get away from me, demon, in the name of God!’

  ‘Father!’

  ‘Get out of my church! Get out!’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Standing the back room of her parents’ house, Aoife tore book after book from the shelves, flipping through, finding nothing useful, discarding them in despair on the floor. All these faded paperbacks and ripped hardbacks, hundreds and hundreds of them acquired by her father from car boot sales and house clearances and the back rooms of junk shops. Stacked in every corner of the room, piled under the television, on the windowsill, on top of the cabinet with the glass doors (which itself was crammed with more books, instead of china ornaments) . . .

  All these years, James O’Connor had been trying to find out to what manner of place the fairies had taken his human daughter.

  Now Aoife O’Connor, his fairy daughter, was trying to find out what manner of creature she was.

  Surely I’m not some Godless monster . . .

  But a terrible memory came back to her – of Caitlin, the big ugly changeling girl, saying of the priest in Ballinadreen: And the stupid man got out his cross like we were in the Dracula film and started praying over me, so I pointed at him to see what would happen and he went up in flames.

  If fire had been Aoife’s power, instead of brute knock-out force, would Killian have gone up in flames like Caitlin’s priest?

  The bookshelf was getting empty now, and she turned to another one beside the fireplace. Country stories, ancient history, mixed up together, crammed upside down and sideways into the shelves. Folklore and Fable looked promising . . . But it was just about leprechauns in stupid hats. Ugh.

  The next torn paperback was the Lebor Gabála Érenn. It fell open at a page with the corner turned down, revealing the passage her father had read to her last May, about the arrival of the Tuatha Dé Danann in Ireland, thousands of years ago:

  They landed with horror, with lofty deed,

  in their cloud of mighty combat of spectres,

  upon a mountain of Conmaicne of Connacht . . .

  Without ships, a ruthless course

  the truth was not known beneath the sky of stars,

  whether they were of heaven or of earth.

  Aoife thought grimly: Or of hell.

  Every reference she had already found claimed that the Tuatha Dé Danann had spent only a few years in Connacht before disappearing down through the stone circles and hawthorn circles into the otherworld. The underworld. Why had they chosen to live beneath the earth, with the dark creatures?

  Down.

  Were they of the dark themselves, and not the light? Were they of life – or of death?

  An ancient maroon hardback was jammed sideways between the top shelf and the low ceiling. A Most Comprehensive Catalogue of Ye Irish Fairies. The pages stiff and wrinkled, half of them stuck together. Hundreds of colour plates of peculiar creatures . . . Including a coloured illustration of a small, wizened being covered in coarse orange hair.

  GROGOCH: Half human, half fairy. Hermit by habit. A venomous spite of priests.

  Aoife paused over the volume, peeling apart more pages, intrigued, flipping back towards the beginning. She’d seen one of these creatures in the underworld, in the zoo outside the pyramid city of Falias. Maybe this account was more accurate than the rest?

  CU-SIDHE, OR ‘COOSHEE’: Fairy dog, many times the size of a human-world dog. Dark green in colour, with bone-white eyes and yellow teeth.

  There was no picture with this piece of text – some of the plates were loose, and maybe this one had fallen out. But she had no problem picturing the giant dog in her mind. She had rescued Eva from a pack of them, and then tamed them. She hoped the zookeeper was looking after the ones who had survived their subsequent battle with the dullahans.

  POOKA: Takes on the shape of the victim’s loved one, to lure them close enough to swallow the head.

  Here the illustration was still glued in – a huge, hulking figure, covered in thick black fur, with grotesquely twisted horns and clawed hands. Red eyes burned on either side of its gaping snout; it had no tongue but its mouth was crammed top and bottom as far back as its throat with row after row of thin triangular teeth, like a hideous cheese grater. She’d seen one of these monsters too – at a distance, luckily: it had been eating the enormous cat that had killed poor Donal.

  DULLAHAN: Decapitated, the dullahan carries his head for a lantern, and if he calls on a mortal by name, the mortal must follow to his death.

  In the black-and-white illustration, a hooded figure held up a rotting head, tongue lolling and maggots falling from its eyes. She had come far too close to these terrifying creatures – Dorocha’s coachman was one of them. And she’d heard a horde of them call Shay Foley’s name, at Dorocha’s bidding – when the Beloved had been unable to force his ring onto her finger.

  (But she had kissed Shay, and he had kissed her back, and they had flown to safety. Shay— Stop. Try not to think about him – too painful.)

  Swiping the back of her wrist across her eyes, she turned more pages. And her heart, already aching at the thought of Shay, grew tight with fear. A beautiful young man with hair the blackened red of dying coals and starry ink-blue eyes was smiling up at her . . . Her eyes fled to the text.

  FEAR DOROCHA: Servant to the Queen of Rebirth, who captured the Dark Man in the wilderness and made him her Beloved. At her request, he fetches down mortal men to the underworld for her amusement.

  Here the entry ended, but Aoife knew the rest of the story, of which this writer was clearly ignorant. Dorocha had murdered the queen when she refused to marry him – as he had threatened to murder Aoife, if she didn’t . . .

  Merge with him.

  From the page, his eyes gazed up at her.

  His midnight eyes . . .

  She threw the book to the floor, overwhelmed and panicky – heart beating too fast – trapped, like a bird flown by accident into a room and unable to find a window.

  All children need to grow up, even the daughters of queens. So I brought you to the surface myself, after your mother’s death.

  It was true: he had carried her to this house, himself, in his black coach, along the fairy road . . .

  It had been a rainy day in spring . . .

  And the banshee had brought her into this very room – she remembered it now – only there were far fewer books and the couch was by the window, and a little girl her own age was lying on it, fast asleep. The banshee had cut Aoife’s tender palm with a knife; and she had cut the human child’s little hand as well, and merged their red and silver blood . . . But still the human child did not wake up. And then the banshee had left, carrying the other little girl. And the woman asleep in the chair had woken up suddenly, and when she saw Aoife, she’d started screaming – and a man came in crying ‘Where is she?’ And Aoife, the changeling child, was desperate to get out, glass and china breaking, trying to fly out of the window, but the shutters were closed and the latch was made of iron, and she had no power over it . . . She had to get out, she didn’t belong here, these people were strangers, she wanted her fairy mother, she wanted her mother, but her mother was . . .

  Gone. Dead. Murdered.

  Silver blood staining the black sheets of her bed.

  And her fairy mother had not gone to heaven, no one had even talked about heaven, and nor had she been buried because she could not be reborn, because she had been murdered with an iron knife. In
stead, her people had carried her away. The ships, with their gold and emerald sails, disappearing into the mist . . . Distant voices raised in weeping. They had taken her mother, wrapped in green silk, to the islands, where she would lie for ever on a great flat rock. Washed clean at high tide by the cold grey sea. But never changing. For ever dead. She would never see her fairy mother again.

  ‘Aoife?’

  With a wild cry, she dropped her armful of books.

  Her father was standing in the doorway, staring in bewilderment at the mess – hundreds of books lying everywhere on the threadbare carpet; face down, crumpled, torn. He cried, ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing! Nothing!’ She tried to get herself back under control. ‘I was just looking for something. I’m sorry, I’ll pick these up right now.’

  Behind him in the hall, there was a bustle of Maeve and Eva, and bags of shopping disappearing into the kitchen. He came into the room, closing the door behind him. ‘Aoife, what’s the matter?’

  She was on her knees on the floor, picking up all the useless information – traveller’s tales from a world where none of these writers had travelled. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Come here to me . . .’ He pulled her to her feet and insisted on embracing her, awkwardly like in the lane, holding her too tight against him so that her nose was pressed into his big shoulder. Now he was working, he smelled again of wood-dust, as he always used to before the recession. ‘Tell me what’s happened, my love.’

  She gave up trying to get away, and sobbed into his shirt, ‘I need to know who I am!’

  ‘Ssh, ssh. You’re my daughter, that’s who you are.’

  ‘I’m evil—’

  ‘That’s rubbish!’

  ‘I can’t control my power. I could have killed that woman who came for Eva.’

  ‘Sure, I would have killed her myself if I was there—’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t! I’m talking literally. And it’s getting worse – I burst out at Killian Doherty because he talked about hurting Carla, even though he didn’t mean anything more than splitting up with her—’