Hollow Oaks Read online

  "Fuck," I gasped. "Fuck it fuck it fuck it." To my left, upstream, the river ran for as far I could make out, a good twenty metres across all the way. In the other direction, it was just as wild and wide. No ford in sight. Not even a rock in the middle.

  My plan was in shreds. The fairies probably used boats to cross it. Maybe rope bridges. I'd been an idiot to think I could manage it. It was their world, after all. Their infrastructure. I was just a hopeless tourist, no more than a portable snack for the bugs.

  From my rucksack I pulled my water bottle, and took a slug. I leaned in to refill it from the flow, drank some more. Then, throat moist, I directed a yell across the raging river.

  "Hello? Ishbéal, you there? You hear me? Fucking anyone? Helloooo?"

  My voice was eaten by the tumult of the water. Shading my eyes from the moon, I peered across, but the portal oak was a good two kilometres from the edge, too far to see.

  "Hey!" I yelled. "For fuck's sake, anyone!"

  No reply, and panic pressed its slippery teeth into my neck.

  Okay, so I couldn't make the Phoenix Park tree. Then I've have to hide. And total cover, not just a boulder to crouch behind, as one slash of sunlight on my skin could engulf me.

  Rock was the way to go, and a few kilometres west of the Marlay Park oak lay the lepp burial grounds. The caves there, some no more than niches, were dug around the base of a rocky outcrop. I might be able to wriggle all the way into one, expel its contents, and wait in its clammy depths while the murderous daylight passed above.

  A stupidly desperate plan, but at the moment all I had.

  I checked my compass and set off south, rucksack bouncing on my back. When I reached the gully for a second time, it was already ten past six, less than three hours to sun-up. I hopped in, sending leaves scattering, and paused. I needed a piss. So, with trousers open and boots spread, I crouched in the gully, and released a steaming patter of pee.

  The soft crunch of leaves. A muffled giggle. My muscles clenched around the flow as my hand slid for the knife on my belt. I fumbled with the catch, pulled it out, and turned.

  Leprechauns. Two of the bastards, ten metres along the gully. Standing hip high, they looked like chimps crossed with badgers, their human-like fingers and toes capped with brown nails. Grey fur covered most of them, somewhat darker on their heads, where small eyes sat in flat and leathery faces. The smaller one of the two had a shoulder bag made of bark or maybe plastic, but was otherwise naked. The bigger one wore a chest-plate of flattened beer cans. He carried a rough pickaxe, that looked heavy enough to crack a skull.

  I stood, doing up my trousers. "Um," I said, and gave a wave. "Oíche mhaith."

  They stared, not wishing me a good night, nor anything else. The bigger one was sniffing the air with suspicion. I surmised, from his armour, that he was in charge.

  Lepps were tricky bastards. I'd only ran into (living) ones once before, and on that occasion they'd pelted me with stones as they chased me back to the portal oak, aiming mostly for my head. But they knew the woods, and they were total suckers for gold.

  So it was fortunate that I had, in a deep pocket, two Austrian gold ducats.

  "Cabhair leat?" the big one said in a shriek of a voice, like a hoarse parrot.

  If I wasn't mistaken, he'd just asked me if I wanted help. I nodded slowly.

  "An grian," I said, pointing to where I thought the sun was. "Contúirteacha…? Is that the word for dangerous? An grian, phoom! So I need, like, shelter. Dídean?"

  He edged a few steps closer, his subordinate just behind. Moonlight gleamed from his beer-can armour and his teeth were a jagged ridge inside a wide and lipless mouth.

  "Teach," he said, and pointed past me. "Teach, ansin, teach!"

  I rummaged through my Irish. Teach meant house, but what was he trying to sell me? A lepp house? That was no good. A fairy house? But lepps hated the small folk.

  "You mean cave?" I said. "Uaimh ansin? Gan teach?"

  He shook his head with an annoyed growl. "Teach! Teach mór. Dídean!" He sniffed, and his eyes widened. "Òr?" he said hungrily. "Ór!"

  Ór meant gold. Could the little bastard smell it on me? They probably just knew that traders and poachers usually carried some. And they wanted it.

  I had to decide. It was nearing dawn, I was getting spinny-headed from exhaustion, and these lepps might be leading me into an ambush. But what were my choices? Find their burial place, dig my way into a tiny cave, with my bare hands, and hope to not be discovered? Fuck that. Because if these two suspected I had gold, they'd never leave me alone.

  Lepp shelter, it appeared, was the only card in the game. I closed my eyes, imagining lying down somewhere dark and windless, drifting away from the world.

  "Fuck it," I said, eyes opening again. "An teach, cé chomh fada? "

  I was asking how far the place was, and the big one explained, or so I believed, that it was nearby. I extracted one of the ducats. The small one yelped upon seeing it but a meaty back-handed slap from the bigger one shut him up sharpish.

  With pointing and dodgy Irish, I made it known that I'd hand over the coin when we got to this house, assuming it was a place I could shelter in. Then and only then.

  After sliding the coin into my pocket, I held up my knife — good shiny steel — when they could both see it. Then I backed to the gully wall to allow them to slip past, their beady eyes fixed on me and my knife the whole way. They stank of sun-dried dung.

  A few steps past me, they stopped. Boss lepp, holding his pickaxe as obviously as I was holding my knife, grunted and pointed on ahead.

  "Okay," I said, struck by an idea. "One second. Fan nóiméad."

  I plucked a few rocks from the ground and piled them on the edge of the gully — a marker, so I'd know where to swing south for the portal oak on my way back. I could do this — follow the lepps, watch for funny business, give them their gold. Then head back to the portal oak after sunset, where I'd wait for Ishbéal and her help. Easy.

  Boss lepp grunted some more. "Anois," he said. "Anois!"

  "Keep your pants on." I strode after them and they scampered on ahead, sending leaves flying. I broke into a jog to follow, the three of us heading west along the gully, away from the soon-to-be-rising sun, towards safety and darkness and a little more life.

  Or so I very dearly hoped.

  The gully turned south-west-ish, and we followed, past overgrown briars, ducking under fallen trees. I grew stiffer and more paranoid the closer we got to dawn. The lepps kept going, and the further we went, the more I was sure they were leading me into an ambush. But all I could do was push on, chest aching, throat on fire, and fervently hope.

  And finally, gloriously, we stopped. I stood, with my hands on my knees, bent over, wheezing. "Can we," I gasped, "just stop … for a second. Briseadh. Please."

  Boss Lepp pointed to his left. "Anseo. Teach."

  With a groan, I stood to peer over the edge of the gully.

  A thirty-degree slope began a short way back, a moonlit tangle of boulders, bushes and trees, rising up and up. A narrow cleft had been hacked right into that slope, and a few metres along that cleft was a dark opening framed by a pair of large blocks.

  A doorway. Tree roots snaked down from the overhanging rock, obscuring the opening a little, but I saw it was way too big for lepps. In fact, it looked human-sized.

  "That's a cave, not a house," I said to my guides. "Gan teach. Uaimh."

  They ignored me and scrambled out of the gully, stopping where the cleft began. I followed, my knife held out in front. They edged a step or two back, but didn't allow me to pass.

  "Ór," Boss lepp barked, extending a dirty-nailed paw. "Anois."

  I pulled the coin from my pocket and held it up. With some pointing, I indicated I had to check the opening first. Reluctantly, the big one stepped back and yanked the smaller one with him. Keeping my eye on them, I slipped into the cleft and crossed the few steps to the opening, with mossy rock to both sides of me, and snatched a
quick look through it.

  A square pillar sat right inside, as wide as the opening itself, with space on both sides to squeeze past. I pulled out a torch, leaned around the pillar, and flicked it on.

  In the glare, I saw a cave, five metres across, and over two high. The floor was of packed earth and stone slabs, and the ceiling and walls looked like natural rock. Dried leaves and branches lay scattered on the floor, and the smell of animal piss was strong.

  Then it got weird, because along both sides sat roughly carved heads, hacked from the rock, staring with empty eyes. Six in total, all human-sized. While across the back right corner stretched a dry-stone wall, from floor to ceiling, as if concealing another entrance. Or exit.

  A racket erupted behind me. I turned and slipped back out, torch held facing the ground. Although clearly eager, the lepps hadn't come any closer.

  "Here," I said, holding the coin up. "Ór. Or don't you want it now?"

  They gabbled in desperate agitation, but kept their distance. Strange.

  "Fine." I sent the coin spinning towards them. Boss lepp snatched it from the air, delivering a meaty slap to the smaller one, who tried too. They backed off, and when they reached the edge of the gully, they burst into a sprint, heading left and out of sight.

  "Go raibh maith agat!" A thank-you, yelled after them. But they were well gone.

  I sighed deep down into my boots. Sleep was clawing at me, and the rough floor of that cave was looking like a feathered nest. I pulled my pack off to make it easier to squeeze past the entrance pillar, and shoved my way in, torch held out.

  The night sounds cut off, and I staggered past the carved faces to the back wall, where I sank to my arse, a bony package of aches and sweat and relief.

  The cave lay before me. I played my beam across the walls, wondering who had built it. Not lepps or fairies, given its size. But it was clearly a place to shelter from the sun, to judge from that shading pillar, which suggested that humans had. Criminals or refugees, probably, hiding over here from the various horrors of their age.

  I wondered how it went for them. Given that I'd never heard of humans living in Tara, I could only assume — not too well. Their bones probably lay somewhere, scorched black.

  Dust tickled my nose. I pointed the torch at my face and the sudden light did its job, bringing an explosive sneeze, and then another, sending echoes off the walls.

  Now just one thing to check. With a groan, I stood and turned the beam to the dry stone wall in the back right corner. It looked solid. At ground level, however, was a space between two blocks. I lay flat and shone the torch through the gap.

  On the other side, I made out a brown-walled passage beyond, cutting into the rock, its walls glistening in my beam. The air smelled like a salt-lick. Nothing moved.

  Declaring it safe, I picked a spot along the back wall, directly in line with the sun-blocking pillar. Off came my boots, unleashing an ungodly whiff, followed by my coat and sweater. I arranged the sweater on my rucksack, making a lumpy pillow, and pulled my coat back on. Finally, I lay down on that floor of stone and hard earth with a shuddering groan.

  I clicked off the torch and closed my eyes. In seconds, I felt myself start to spread and soften. Carved faces shifted in the churn, but now they'd changed to a man in sunglasses, a woman in a hood, and many leathery faces with jagged teeth.

  And behind them all, another face, huge and hungry as a mountain, watching.

  Then sleep folded into a wave and I slid under it and I was gone.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I woke, startled, into grainy light, a whisper fading in my ear. A mad scramble to locate my torch before I sat up, flipping the beam around to the hydraulic sqooshing of my heart.

  The cave-room was the same — faces, pillar, dirt. My mouth tasted foul, my bladder pulsed, and a dream clung to me, liquid voices asking what I desired, begging me to know it.

  Groggily, I checked my watch — ten past five in the evening, on Christmas Eve. I'd slept all day, and the sun had just set. That took a second to sink in. I'd bloody made it! Now I just had to find my way back to the portal oak and wait there for Ishbéal, who'd turn up around midnight. Those greedy lepps, it seemed, had saved my arse.

  I stood. Fuck, stiff all over. I did a few stretches as my gaze drifted to the wall in the back of the cave. Big stones and small ones, fitted carefully together. I wondered, as I rotated my torso to the cracking of my spine, if they were to keep something in, or out.

  Sitting, I had a rummage through my backpack. Rule zero, hammered into me by Cormac, was to never visit the other side without supplies. I pulled out a hard green apple, most of a Toblerone, a bag of salted cashews, and my water bottle, half filled, which meant less than a litre. On my person I had my knife, my switched-off mobile phone, my compass, two torches plus a tiny one on my keyring, the anchors in my pocket, the leaves in my hair, a half pack of ciggs, one gold Ducat, two lighters, and one tiny, laminated map.

  I sliced the apple in two and ate one half. It was followed by a handful of cashews and four chunks of Toblerone, washed down with a slug of water. Breakfast, done.

  The sun had set, but I wasn't ready to venture outside just yet, not while light still lingered in the sky. So I emptied my bladder in the corner nearest the entrance pillar and tried to decide how to keep busy for thirty minutes. And my gaze slid to the dry-stone wall.

  Gernaud had accused me of having no curiosity. And now I was looking at something he'd be thrilled to find — a cave, apparently made by and for humans, with a secret passage.

  The more I stared, the more annoyed I felt. Not curious, was I? I'd show him.

  I jammed on my boots, not bothering to lace them, and packed my bag, laying my folded-up hoodie on top. Then I went to lie flat by the little hole in the wall, torch in hand.

  The passage beyond the wall was brown stone, narrowing towards the top, but looked spacious enough to walk upright. Water had ran down those walls, smearing them a dirty green. In other places, the stone glittered, probably minerals left by the water.

  A wriggle got me closer, until I was pressing my face against the cold stones.

  Twenty, thirty metres in, the passage seemed to end at a wall. Or a sharp turn. And at that possible intersection … was that another carving? It sure looked like a face.

  I stood and surveyed the wall. The stones weren't cemented together. In theory, they could be moved. The top was barely reachable, but I didn't have to start at the top.

  In the glare of the torch, I picked a stone in the middle, about as big as two house bricks. A shove. Nothing happened. A harder shove, and the stone moved in with a scrape.

  I pushed harder. The stone slid further and fell with a thump. I stepped up, to peer through the hole I'd made, and I had my face pressed close when stone suddenly creaked against stone, and the wall bulged and the part above my hole toppled outward.

  In lightning panic, I retreated. But my step snapped short — those fucking laces — and I fell onto my arse as stones hammered down. A burst of bright fire exploded as a stone slammed onto my boot-covered left foot. I scrambled backwards, as the ground shook, until I felt the pillar against my back. I cowered there as the final stones trundled to a halt.

  Stunned, I stared at the mess I'd made. Most of the wall lay spread out across the floor like a broken puzzle. And my foot bellowed inside my boot with pain.

  I grabbed the boot, to a gut-punch stab of pain. I loosened laces, water flooding my eyes, and tried to yank it off and failed and pulled again to someone's awful scream.

  The boot fell. Dizzy, with a white-hot heart in my sock, I prodded the foot, and winced. I yanked the sock off. The foot was puffy, oddly smooth, with stains around the small toe. Not bloody, like I'd expected. But the sharp thud, tripling in crazy intensity when I poked it, made it clear that the foot or toe or both were fractured or maybe even broken.

  Fuck fuck fuck. I'd no way to deal with broken bones. And I needed to walk, because Ishbéal wouldn't find me where I was.
How long to hop to the portal oak? Hours.

  I stood on my good foot. The now-open passage behind the wall taunted me as I snatched up my boot and hopped to my rucksack, where I sat, a prize idiot. I reached for my knife and cut into the boot. A slit down the middle, a shorter one across the bottom, making space. I re-socked the bad foot and slid it in, teeth pressed over a whine.

  When it was done I could barely see straight. But I laced it up, at least a little, then did the other one up the whole way. It would have to do. And now time to get hopping.

  I hadn't even stood when I heard the noises from the entrance, from behind the fat pillar. A snuffling, a growl, a bestial giggle. I gripped my knife, holding my breath.

  That giggle wasn't from the small folk. That was fucking lepps.

  A shape at the entrance, near the ground. The click of claws on stone. I swept up my torch and pointed it. The shape edged inside, body then tail, and my gut tightened.

  A fucking basilisk. Half a metre of fat grey lizard and tail, wrapped in a foul demeanour. Apart from the claws and temper, it had nasty venom in its bite and spit, which led to stone-hard paralysis and lung-clenching death.

  One hand to the wall, I stood, keeping the torch pointed as it slunk in. More giggling from outside, and I twigged their plan. The fucking lepps wanted me dead, to rob my corpse, so they'd shoved in their pet beastie, hoping it would do the job for them.

  "Easy now," I said, knife out, as I tried to balance on one foot. "All good here, yeah?"

  The basilisk, the colour of a mouldy stone, crept along the floor. My rucksack lay behind me, and my sweater, but also the core of the half-apple I'd eaten. Reaching down, I stabbed the core with the knife, and raised it up. I swung it from side to side, getting its gaze to follow. Then I yanked the core off and sent it flying over the basilisk's head and into the far corner.

  It scampered after it, claws clacking. I grabbed my hoodie and, fast as fuck, draped it over an arm, as a fairly rubbish shield, and started along the opposite wall, towards the exit.