Hollow Oaks

  HOLLOW OAKS

  Paddy Kelly

  DEDICATION

  For Jenny. The best ideas were hers.

  Copyright © 2019 Paddy Kelly

  All Rights Reserved

  Table Of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER ONE

  I popped the lid on my case, and spun it to face the customer.

  "Pure stuff," I said. "Best you'll get anywhere. Fresh as a fairy's kiss."

  "Is it, now?" Seamus Cavan said, peering in. I had the goods arranged in two tidy rows, snuggled in little depressions on the brown velvet. Just begging to be bought.

  Seamus plucked one out. A small blue jar, copper wire around the rim. He held it up in the light, which all came from a floor lamp by the heavily curtained window.

  "There's a mad buzz off that one," I said. "Go on, try it."

  Seamus closed his eyes and passed a hand under the jar. Feeling for the tingle. I watched, to the muffled growl of the Dublin traffic passing outside.

  "Hmm," he said. Not a good hmm. More like a hmm that still could lace its shoes and hold down a job but was clearly, in the very near future, headed for a park bench.

  "Fresh, you say?" Seamus's eyes opened. "Then so's my hairy arse."

  "These I got right from the source, just last week. Top notch—"

  "So you keep saying." Seamus shoved the jar back into the case and grabbed one containing four red tail feathers. He lifted it, shook it. Held it to his face.

  I swallowed, and in my head it was loud as a door latching.

  Seamus glowered as he returned the jar to its brothers. He was a good glowerer. Or, at least, he had been. In the two months since I'd last seen him, he'd gone to shit. Weight loss, skin rash, receding hair … clearly the poor bastard had some disease.

  "Now." His arms slid into a defensive fold across his chest. "You'll tell me why the fuck you're coming here, wasting my day, to show me that … fucking rubbish."

  I blinked at him, surprised. Seamus was always gruff, but never rude.

  "Sorry you feel that way. But I'm telling you, you won't get better—"

  "I got fucking better, only a few months ago. And I got it from you."

  I had a retort all ready to fly, but then I ordered it back from the craggy rim of my lips, across that moist expanse of tongue, and made it hang up its parachute.

  Because it wasn't the first time I'd heard that. Even since I'd taken over my mentor Cormac's customers, they'd been moaning about my merchandise, more insistently over the last few months. I'd assumed they were just born complainers, or unhappy in their marriages, or not totally on board with reliable old Cormac being swapped out for a person who started off looking fairly female, and then ending up looking decidedly more dude-ish.

  But now … I wavered. Could it be true? Was I standing here, in a cosy, carpeted study in a Dublin hotel, with a grin on my dumb face and a case full of shoddy wares?

  "Even your last stuff wasn't up to scratch," Seamus said, further inserting the boot. "Been sliding in quality for months now. Just worse and fucking … worser."

  "My stuff's from the same people as always, and I can promise you—"

  "You're not fucking listening!" Seamus roared, eyes bulging, spit flying. I stood there, shocked, stinky breath washing across my face. "Maybe it's a game for you, McCullough, for pocket money, to fucking amuse yourself. But for some of us it's, it's…"

  He trailed off, fists clenched, cheek atremble. I swallowed, sliding a glance towards the study door, estimating just how fast I could get the fuck out of Dodge.

  Seamus expelled a shaky breath through his nostrils. His shoulders slumped and he located a chair behind him, which he sank onto, looking about a million years old.

  "Um," I said. "I … didn't realise. I mean, people were moaning, but—"

  "Nah," he said, waving a contrite hand. "Shouldn't have lost it. Guests might hear. And it's not just you. Same with the others. Quality's dropping across the board."

  I nodded. Then stiffened. Other? What others? Dublin was my turf. Were there other suppliers selling to my customers? Since fucking when?

  Seamus's arms lay across the armrests, skin as white and thin as a plucked chicken. He shook his head, gazing at my case on the table, eyes full of thoughts.

  "Tell you what," he said. "Your stuff's shite, but I'll buy the lot. For half price."

  "Half!" I splurted. "Don't be joking me, that's…"

  And I thought about it. A shameful offer, sure. On the other hand, he was taking all of them. Meaning I was done for the day, and could go home and climb into the bath.

  But half price? Maybe he'd demand the same next time. Then word would spread and all my customers would demand it. Whereupon I'd be fucked. My margins, evaporated.

  But that was the deal on offer. And that bath felt really, really tempting.

  "Alright," I said. "Fine. As a sign of good faith. Half price. Just this once."

  Removing all eight jars, I lined them up neatly on the coffee table. Then I clipped shut the case and set it down on the carpet, on a swirl of gaudy paisley sperms.

  Seamus, wheezing, dug out his wallet and extracted two hundred and forty Euro. I took the notes, slipped them into my pocket. They felt tragically thin.

  "Alright." I grabbed my case. "See you in a month or so, I suppose."

  Seamus was staring at the jars. As if they'd already disappointed him, just by existing. Getting no goodbye in return, I stepped across to the door, pulled it open.

  "McCullough," Seamus said. I turned, but he wasn't looking at me, just at the jars. "Bren ... If I were you, I'd go look into your suppliers, you get me? Find out what the fuck's going on there. Before things get properly … disastrous. For all of us."

  A nod, before I stepped into the corridor and closed the door. Where I stood for a second, staring at the handle, as a bubble of worry expanded in my gut.

  Was he right? Was this fading of quality not just a thing that would fix itself, but something that would go on, and get worse? Because that, as he'd pointed out, would be disastrous. I needed the money my trading netted. For rent and food and such, but mostly for that clinic in Switzerland. A trip long planned and soon within my grasp.

  But all that was fucked if I suddenly had no more customers.

  I turned, facing a corridor of gaudy carpet, green wallpaper, flickery wall lamps. Tinny music oozed around the corner from the reception desk, and, at the corridor's end, shelves of tourist leaflets hung on the wall, mostly blocked by the brown-coated form of a man's back.

  Maybe that fella had heard Seamus yelling, and wondered what the hell we were doing in there. Or maybe not. Crafters Lodge attracted a strange and special crowd.

  I strode up the corridor, empty case in hand, and edged around him with an "Excuse me." On the wall ahead, by the reception desk, a mirror hung, and in it I saw the man reflected behind me. He wore sunglasses, and was also looking at me. Intently.

  I stopped, and glanced back, catching his gaze before he swung his attention back to the fliers — amphibious sightseeing, ghost walks, authentic Irish music in an authentic Irish bar built ten years ago. Studying them deeply. Wearing sunglasses.

  "Help you the
re?" a voice squeaked up.

  I turned, surprised to be reminded that the receptionist, a skinny black-haired boy, was still behind the desk, slouched over a graphic novel, with a sour look on him.

  "Nah," I said. "All done here. Have a happy Christmas and all."

  Next stop, the front door, then out into the wet embrace of a Dublin evening.

  Ahead of me, cars and green double-decker buses sat in traffic, and pavement-trudgers moved past, heads down against the drizzle. I closed my coat, and joined them.

  I passed McGowan's, where loud Christmas drinkers were out in force, clad in ironic seasonal jumpers. The pub's front window had vanished under a snow-in-a-can landscape, framed by chains of red lights, like a desperate cherry on a bad cake.

  Past the noisy gaggle I went, reaching the corner, where I turned onto the South Circular Road, then a bit further until I reached my moped, chained to a pole. Keys in hand, I extracted my helmet, pressed the seat shut, slid the helmet on … and froze.

  Back on the corner I'd just passed, thirty metres distant, someone was standing, and looking my way. A tall man in a brownish coat. Wearing sunglasses.

  For five seconds, he stood there. Then, casually, he crossed the street right through the traffic, annoying a taxi into a honk and a glare, and passed out of sight.

  I blinked through the drizzle. Was that the guy from Crafters Lodge? Had he followed me out, or just happened to leave at the same time? And should I care?

  The answer, I realised, was no. If I took every weirdo in Dublin seriously, I'd never do anything else. So I clipped my case onto the carrier of my moped, and sat.

  Staring ahead, I pondered the last hour. The sliding quality of my goods was now officially an issue, as the skinny wad in my pocket attested to. And I had no imports waiting at home, good wares or bad, that I could sell to make that wad any fatter.

  But I did have four empty charging jars tucked into the guts of my case.

  A taxi nearby disgorged onto the pavement a trio of young ladies in heels, belting out Last Christmas in a manner that would make its makers squirm and/or spin.

  The options facing me were the following: go home, sink into the bath, glass of red on the rim, shaping beards from suds. Or make a certain trip to a certain park.

  My watch showed eight, so a bit early for option two. But I couldn't go slacking off now, much as I wanted to. My plans were on the line. My income. Everything.

  I jerked the moped around, aiming its nose at the glistening street. And after the trio of terrible singers had ambled past, I kicked it to life, and rolled into traffic.

  Time to go climb through a tree, and do myself some poaching.

  Dry leaves crunched under my boots as I clambered from the hole in the ancient oak. I stood, a grin expanding on my face, and paused a while to listen.

  Oily darkness all around. And in it, the rowf and ack-ack-ack and krikitikitiki of unseen creatures, the rattle of leaves, the swish of wind through grass. But no cars, or aeroplanes, or nattering people, none of the sounds of the world I was born in.

  Because this wasn't the world I was born it. This was Tara, the other place.

  A minute later, the darkness was a smidge less oily, and above, crazy shoals of stars were hardening, twinkling through the branches. I'd need twenty minutes to get my eyes fully dark adapted, but after only a few, I judged it good enough, and walked.

  The portal oak grew on a gentle slope of rocky slabs and snakey roots. I picked my way down, my hair flapping like a greasy flag in the breeze, as the woods kept up their night-time clamour around me, hopefully swallowing my illicit footsteps.

  I had torches, of course. But turning on a torch was like screaming, "Hey, over here, come rob/nibble/messily devour me, please!" Which was to be avoided. So I picked my steps, from root to earth to boulder, to the soft clink of the four charging jars in my coat pocket. And as I went, I scanned the ground. Until I saw them.

  Three acorns, lying among leaves. I squatted down, and plucked them into my open hand. I didn't need to clearly see them to know they were useless. No tingle. They'd been off their tree too long. The anam in them had fled. Their tiny souls, wriggled away.

  "Bugger." I dropped them, and stood, not massively surprised.

  Winter wasn't the best time for poaching, with so little growing and absorbing energy from ground and sky, meaning flowers and seeds were generally not an option. Eggshells, maybe, as they retained their anam for quite a while. Certain animal parts often worked — claws, teeth, beaks, feathers, scales. Depending on when the animal had died. And how.

  So all that remained was to find some, in a forest the size of a country.

  I trudged on, reaching the bottom of the slope. Dark and grassy ground stretched ahead to more trees. A small cliff rose to my right, and to my left, scraggly bushes, behind which lay nasty swampy bits, where one could easily be swallowed up to the hip.

  I looked around, pondering. And then my gaze swung to the cliff — an almost vertical wall of boulders and bushes, where, six metres up, sat a certain tree stump.

  Hmm. And this, a much improved hmm. A hmm that could be president.

  Because, behind that out-of-the-way tree stump, I had chucked a few iron nails a few months back. Iron, even iron from Earth, rusted. And rust trapped anam.

  Not much anam. So little that only a desperate person would go to the trouble of harvesting it. Enter desperate person, stage left, pursed by a bear.

  A rising moon was oozing more light into the woods, making it look simple enough to clamber from boulder to boulder up that craggy wall. Off I set, with the slippiest shoes known to mankind. A few boulders up, breathless, I reached a wide ledge, and edged along it, my back to mossy rock. One minute later, I reached the place where soil had settled. In that earth, the snapped-off stump of an old tree sat, studded by hard fungus.

  Squatting, in the erratic swirl of the breeze, I peered behind the stump, and grinned. The nails were still there, half-covered in leaves and grit, and scabby with rust.

  If only I'd thought to bring a horseshoe, and a charging frame. Always got a good price, the horseshoes. But I had what I had, so I set to work, dropping nails into my four blue jars, until I had all of them. Then I stabbed holes in each lid, to allow the rusting to continue, and tucked them inside the tree stump, where they'd be hidden but still exposed to light.

  Done. Now they'd sit for a month, for a full cycle of the sun and moon, until the anam became potent. After which I could take them for sale on the other side, and my customers could makes their urges, or unguents, or curses, or mood dolls, or whatever.

  That's how it was — charged up on one side, useful only in the other.

  Feeling exposed on that mossy cliff, in the swelling moonlight, I started my clumsy descent. Feeling a tad more uplifted. Not a totally wasted trip. Maybe, for once, luck was about to look my way, and nod, and wink, and bestow a sloppy kiss upon me.

  I hopped off the boulder at the bottom, back onto grassy ground, and wiped my hands, sweaty but pleased. And I was about to stride on when I heard a voice.

  "Óiche mhaith." I froze. The voice was small. But close.

  I looked around, everything murky grey and brown in the moonlight. On a low boulder in the grass, a few metres away, stood a tiny figure. Looking at me.

  I swallowed. Bugs were nuzzling my neck, but I couldn't be arsed waving them away. Because the thing on the rock, the fairy, had fucking caught me in the act.

  "Oíche mhaith," I shakily replied, wishing it a good evening in return.

  The fairy studied me across the stretch of grass. A smidge taller than a Barbie doll, it was covered in a fine, silver-blue fur, apart from the face and hands. No clothes, no shoes, no wings, it watched me with big eyes that shone black like globs of coffee in its head.

  Eyes that radiated blame.

  "Well, nice to bump into you," I said. "Guess I'll be on my way—"

  "You will wait," the fairy said, in a voice surprisingly loud for its size. It had
an Irishness to it, but also something older and weirder, in the direction of Icelandic.

  Standing, with a rock wall behind me and open grass ahead, I pondered my chances of running for it. A knitting-needle long spear lay beside the fairy, and I might move fast enough to avoid it. However, there might be others in hiding, ready to pincushion me.

  Plus, if I ran and it gossiped, the one I usually traded with — swapping craft items I'd charged back home for ones charged here — might be instructed to avoid me in the future. Meaning I'd go from delivering ineffective wares, to delivering no bloody wares at all.

  Fuck it. What to do? Squish it? Bribe it? Tell it everything?

  "The queen frowns upon your kind sneaking around," it said. "I could have your rights revoked. I could even—"

  "Now hang on." I sat, crossed-legged, on the wiry grass, to look less threatening. My heart hammered in my fingertips. "Let's not get crazy. Just let me explain—"

  "I do not think you can," it said. "But I may not have to say that I saw you."

  I stared at it, my eyes narrowing. "Go on…"

  The fairy, copying me, sat on the edge of its boulder, its little legs dangling. In the moon's cobwebby light, its fur glistened with a silvery sheen.

  "Daoine mór," it began, but I cut it off with a raised hand.

  "Bren. Bren McCullough. Let's start with that. And who are you?"

  "I am Ishbéal An Íbar, of the tree clan. I was given … a task. I took it gratefully, but now I see I can't complete it. Not without help from your side."

  I blinked at her tiny form, sensing the glimmer of an opening. A way out.

  "Okay," I said, delicately. "What kind of task we talking about here?"

  "The anam. You must have seen it. The fading. The decay."

  A slow and careful nod. "I might have … noticed something."

  "I was instructed to find out why it happens. And I believe something on your side interferes with its flow."

  I shifted my arse on the damp ground. "My side? But why would we do that?"

  "I don't know. But I have covered all other routes of enquiry."