Hollow Oaks Page 7

  From here, there was nowhere to go but out, where we couldn't go, as daylight still glowed around the pillar. So we turned, facing the opening from which came the rumble of gushing water, imagining what might be climbing its floppy way up that passage, leaving a trail of slime and ice, with tiny bent bones in its hair, its mouth a stinking howl.

  But nothing came. The noise eased off, the shaking faded. And finally died.

  I sat down in a heavy heap. Debbie sat beside me.

  "Well, I suppose we know what that wall was for now."

  I nodded. I still felt the wound in my mind. The hole of its promises.

  I turned to her. "What was that thing? And why did you go down there?"

  "I…" She shook her head. "It was like … something hugging me with light, showing me what I wanted. My desires. And other things, like … someone else's thoughts."

  I turned to the tunnel. It looked like a throat now, a thing waiting to devour us. The glistening rock of its walls like encrusted saliva.

  We should rebuild the wall. But why? It wouldn't stop water.

  "Thoughts?" I said, turning back to her. "Thoughts from who?"

  She considered it. "From a fairy, I think. Or from many. They came here and she got into them. She made them glow, like little hot stones. Wrapped herself around them—"

  "She?"

  "It felt that way. She only wanted to live. But she used them too hard, burned them out. And not just fairies, Bren. I saw it. People too, like us. I think she preferred that. I saw other things as well, but it was kind of a mess. A river, and a tree that people came out of it. God, I might have killed you down there."

  "It didn't, though." I pondered what she'd said. People coming out of a tree. Could there be a portal oak nearby? Was there a way home that we'd missed?

  "My shotgun," Debbie said. "It's down there, isn't it, in that tomb?" I nodded. "My grandfather bought that Remington. I suppose there's no way we can—"

  "Absolutely fucking not. No-one's going back in there."

  "So what should we do now? What if it tries to come back?"

  "We don't let it." I held my stabbed hand up, blood still wet, like a stigmata. "We patch ourselves up and wait for sunset. We stay awake, so neither of us can get any notions and sleepwalk back down there. And then we get the fuck out of here."

  Debbie nodded and went for the first-aid kit. I pressed a hand to my forehead, not feeling anywhere near as confident as I was trying to sound.

  Because that thing was still there, it had tasted us, and it wanted us. And if we let it creep back in, maybe we'd also end up as scabby bones in a wet cave.

  But if we just stayed alert and awake, it would all be fine. I was absolutely sure of it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Of course the cave was surrounded by leprechauns. Of fucking course it was.

  "How many?" Debbie said, when I ducked back in through the opening.

  "Dozens." I sank onto the floor beside her. "Big ones and small ones, armour, sticks, stones, slings. They let me get halfway out the cleft before they pelted me. They're playing with us, the little shits, like when I was up in the tree. I don't think they'll let us out."

  Debbie was lacing up her boots in a hurry, wincing from her stabbed foot. "How about those fairies? Can't you get them here again, so they can chase them off?"

  "That's too many lepps to deal with, even with poison spears. They'd need an army. Shit. I should never have shown them that stupid gold in the first place."

  Garbled yells came from outside. A stone clattered in through the opening.

  "The gun," Debbie said with determination. "We have to go get it—"

  "And then what? We shoot a few, the rest would be on us in a second."

  She stood. "There has to be a way out. Maybe back in the pit room. A passage, or a crack—"

  "You think they wouldn't be able to spot us sneaking off through the woods? Let's think about this. They won't come in. But why? It's not just out of respect for fairy bones."

  "The thing in the tomb," Debbie said, her eyes lighting up. "Maybe they're scared of her."

  "Ah! Of course they are. So maybe we could hide out there. No, actually not. The fairies won't go down there either, so we won't know when they show up. And as soon as we go to sleep, that thing … she'll try to take us again. Fuck."

  And it wasn't our only issue. We also had one bad foot apiece. Even if we got past the siege outside, there was no way we'd cover the twelve kilometres or so to Brufort House, especially not if trailed by a gross of angry leprechauns.

  A soft splat came, followed by animal giggling. Seconds later, the smell reached us.

  "Oh, God," Debbie said, holding her nose. "Is that…?"

  "Shit," I said. "The little bastards are turd bombing us."

  We listened to the noise outside as I rummaged for an idea, any idea, but I found only one with any kind of heft to it. Only problem — it was incredibly dangerous.

  And yet here I was, considering it.

  "What?" Debbie said, watching my face. "You've thought of something. Tell me."

  I leaned closer and told her. Her eyes widened and remained wide even after I'd finished.

  "Bren, that's insane, given what nearly happened."

  "Maybe not. Think back. She said she wanted you to contain her, to be her limbs. That means she could … possess you, walk around in you. Right? So we let her, but to me. Then we march me out there and see if it scares off the lepps, like I think it will. She also showed you a portal oak, remember? With people coming out of it. So maybe that's around here somewhere, and she knows where. It could be our way back."

  "An unknown portal oak?" Debbie sounded doubtful. "I don't know…"

  "We've no choice. Soon they'll send in worse than shit and stones. When she took over you, you were basically asleep, not expecting it. But if I let her in while I'm awake, I bet I can control her. You just stab me with your knife if it all goes bad. Chase her off."

  "If that does chase her off. We don't know if any of that will work—"

  "Don't you think I know that? But I'm out of ideas." I limped across to our stuff and grabbed my boots. "Empty your pack. We'll take just the bare essentials in mine."

  I laced on my cut-up boot while Debbie repacked a bag as I'd suggested, leaving clothes and camping stove and excess gear in a pile.

  "Ready," she said, lifting the rucksack. "It's not much."

  "It's enough." I laced up the other boot and stood, ready to go. A few more stones clattered against the pillar, and probably more turds too, as the stink had intensified.

  "Give it here." Debbie handed the rucksack over and I pulled it on. She led the way in a nervous limp, over the broken wall and into the passage, her knife and torch out.

  A cold breeze oozed over us like a sickly breath, across our boots and on past. I shifted the rucksack to get it comfortable. It didn't get comfortable. It never would.

  "Let's get it over with. And be ready. This could all go tits-up really fast."

  The floor of the tomb glistened wetly. Bones lay scattered like straw. Debbie's shotgun lay in the middle. She dashed ahead to snatch it up, then backed up to me, panting.

  I watched her pop out the shells inside and replace them, in a nervous fumble, with dry ones from her pocket. "Maybe we should go now. This might get us past the—"

  I grabbed her arm. "No. We're going to try this. We have to."

  What I didn't say, what I barely admitted to myself, was that I wanted to feel that thing again. She'd tried to kill me, sure, but there was an ache in me for that golden light, for the things she'd shown me. Plastic promises, but I wanted to taste them, just once more.

  Now there was no sign it had happened at all. A suffocating silence had settled in the cave, and the little pool at the end was a dark circle with not even one tiny ripple.

  "Okay," I said. "I'm going." I limped ahead until I stood over the well, looking down. A small skull lay against the raised stones of the rim. A deep breath, then I cl
osed my eyes.

  I heard a voice, far off, as if through a door and behind a wall.

  "Come on," I whispered. "You're there, I know you are. So come out."

  I settled on the damp floor, cross-legged before the well, my eyes still closed. My breathing slow. "Hi," I said. "Can you hear me? I came back. I missed you. You in there?"

  A soft splash from the water. A gasp from Debbie. Despite an intense desire to look, I kept my eyes shut, trying to hold my focus. Breathe in, breathe out, listening, waiting.

  "Bren?" Debbie said from behind. "I don't have to stab you yet, do I?"

  "You'll know if you have to. Now keep quiet, I'm trying to find her."

  I lowered my mind down, as if going to sleep, setting it floating in shifting shapes and bubbles of light, probing and searching and … there! A low swirl of sounds along the edges. A voice. I swallowed. "My dearest. I'm back. I need your love. And your help."

  A soft clicking in my ears. A sigh, pressing in through the cracks.

  My love I will take you you know I will I must—

  "Stop. Just listen. I’d know you’d like to. But I think you're too weak.”

  Another splash, like a pebble being dropped. I kept my eyes firmly closed.

  Why are you back and why did you leave my children why.

  The words were closer and sharper, but still soft, like water hissing over stones.

  "I need you," I said, only half a lie. "It must be shitty down here. No love, no body, only all those bones—"

  A painful flash, lightning in my head. I saw fairies slipping through the woods, and people descending steps, faces white with fear. A tree in moonlight, from which a child was climbing. Then a lurch, and a howl. Hunger, eternal, eating me, eating itself—

  "Bren?" Debbie's voice, from another place. I raised a hand that had no weight — No — hoping she saw and understood. Not now. Not yet. But maybe soon. Be ready.

  In my head the voice came again, so near and so terribly hungry.

  We moved in the water and we ate them but never enough always hungry please—

  "Slow it down," I said. "You want to … taste us, is that it? Like before? And you can. I want to … share myself with you. For a while. But only a while, you hear me?"

  Cold slivers pierced my head, like icy fingers seeking.

  Your wants your desires so warm so many.

  "Stop that." The fingers drew back. My chest lay tight across my breath, like skin stretched on hooks. "The ones up there. The leprechauns. They fear you, don't they?"

  I caught a blurred outline, the shadowy size of a lepp, with sawtooth teeth.

  They burn brightly but in a soft beat they are gone their fear it holds them away.

  More or less the answer I wanted. The lepps were scared of her. They would keep back. Although maybe she was just lying to get her way. A risk I had to take.

  "And the tree, the one those people came through—"

  Up there so long ago they walked from it the sweet ones down to me my loves—

  "So the tree's nearby? You're sure? Can you show me where?"

  Another image in the twisting layers. A tree, beside another, on a hill. It felt familiar. Wait … wasn't that the tree beside the one I'd hid in? One of the two on the plateau?

  Hungry cold so long and the pain the pain the pain—

  "Hey," I said. "Relax. I'm Bren. Okay? That's my name. And who are you?"

  A pause. A gurgle from the well, as icy air stroked my bare neck.

  Do not ask me do not ever ask what they called me when they lived no—

  "Sorry. I'll just call you Esmerelda, how's that? I'm Bren. You're Esmerelda."

  Drink. The whisper multiplied inside my head, unfolding and doubling until it occupied all space. Drink me my love take me I will aid you I will take you past them drink.

  A deep breath and I opened my eyes. The world dragged as I looked around, image trails, light bubbles. I turned to Debbie, out of focus, a silhouette of vapour around her.

  "Bren?" she said. "Are you … okay? Should I…?"

  I shook my head. Heavy head. "I'm good. And now I have to … do the thing. But I'm in charge, so don't panic, okay? Just keep an eye open."

  I turned back to the pool, where the water was no longer dark but a cocktail cherry red. A scent rose, of sex toast chocolate rum and I wanted it so bad my limbs shook as I leaned over, the aroma swelling, licking my face with its drink me drink me drink—

  I cupped my shaking hands and I lowered them to the water.

  Debbie behind me, a hand on my shoulder. A rock in a sea in a flood.

  Outside already. Moonlight. Brightness flapping at its bare edges like thrashing tarpaulin. The cave mouth quivering golden and the world all buckled and crawling over itself.

  My dearest love I come with you I swim in your brightness and burning and—

  Her voice, non-ending. And I looked up, two minds luminous, at the appalling night.

  Not dark. Alive. Blazing stars like wounds in reverse, drawn in deep. Trees as glowing tubes, branches and roots in a matching sprawl, below like above. And around, the angry toothy squiggles in a neon froth. The lepps in their tens and dozens. All angry.

  “Bren?” something said. Debbie, in front of me, and delicious. Succulent need aflicker on bone, twisted around a bubbling heart, all wrapped in a blur of a cloak of a skin—

  "Bren?" she said again or for the first time. I shook my head in ripples.

  “I’m fine,” I said thickly, aches into words. “It’s just a bit … twisty. Are we…?”

  "They're keeping away," she said. "Moving back into the woods. About ten metres. And they're making quite a racket too. You sure you're—"

  "I'm good. It's close, I can feel it. Just let me … let me look."

  Lepps crouched nearish in the ferns and the bushes, packed balls of brute desire. And something else too, above me, not far. A thing. A slit that sang.

  Where they came the dear ones with screams and wants the door the way—

  The portal oak, it was really up there. A slope, two trees, one alight, pouring song.

  "Bren? We should move, before they get it together. Bren?"

  I lifted a hand and pointed. "The tree. I can … hear it singing."

  A stone scraped an airpath to whack into my shoulder. Anger blooming, ground brightening and squeals came as they scattered, in blazing panic, to regroup in safer dark.

  "Go," I gasped. "Up there. Walk me. The tree."

  We moved, right and right again then up. The rim advanced ahead of us, the place where the veil of her power clipped off the dark. The lepps scattered before it and regrouped further out, encircling us, heat glowing out of ears and eyes and shitholes.

  "They're pulling back," said a voice. Time was so long, so dark. From water to river to meat, shackled and hungry. "Are you sure about a portal? I never heard of — ow!"

  A stone, in the soft of my neck. But need to keep moving. Over the rim, past the first tree, a run of steps to the next. "Keep close. The second tree … go."

  Open grassless ground, bright as painted day, stumbling, followed by the babbling ground-hoard, things thrown, soft, stinky. And inside me the voice and inside that the scream.

  Again angry again feed me please feed you will live we will endure and—

  A bite on my lip to keep me aimed ahead, to not dissolve. The veil, pushing back. The tree close now, reaching down and under. Maybe we'd make it. If only I could be sure, reach deeper—

  My focus lapsed and they fell upon us, screams and claws and drool. Debbie spun and boom the gun shook the world, but not enough, they were coming, and the one inside me coiled tight, pulled in all heat and focused it hard and fierce until it burst.

  The veil around me became a solid thing. It struck six or ten and flung them back, squealing, into low bushes. The others cowered, behind each other. Afraid.

  The voice roared in my head, turning over itself in a hot cauldron boil.

  You and I we are greatness we are o
ne my love my always—

  "Come on!" The scream was Debbie's and her shove got me moving, slipping across wet ground. The tree ahead, deep and old, its core a bright-sung song. Steps away.

  But they were gathering, with more stones and shit. And the veil, growing smaller the further we got from the cave. Soon about to die.

  We staggered up to the tree, Debbie beside me, her pain flickering in jags, delicious pain and the need for ending it. A release I could give her, we could—

  No, the tree. Focus now. You promised.

  I reached out to the bark, into its light and beyond … but too far. The veil snapped.

  They smelled it and in they fell, waves of shit-bitter rage. Debbie swung her shotgun and I flooded my mind with all the desires I had, feeding it every single scrap—

  Light drained from the grass like crackling ice, gathered into me. My skull creaked with the containment, but I held, teeth pulsing, held it for one heartbeat and then out.

  Tsunami rings of white, blinding, pulsing. The lepps fell back, trampling those behind to escape from the burn, with me and her and Debbie at its maelstrom centre.

  Gasping, I slapped a hand onto hard bark and reached deep inside.

  "Hurry." Debbie, yelling in my ear. "They're coming back. Hurry, Bren!"

  Eyes blind in the shine, I felt the portal's far side, its pale twin. And my glow chilled, as stones smacked us. The connection was there, on a naked level, but … no.

  The tree, this hole, it was too small. Large enough for an arm, maybe two, or a fairy, or a lepp squeezed in sideways, but not for humans. Not for us.

  The bridge broken and they stopped coming bring them bring them back—

  "The hole's too small," Debbie yelled. "It must have grown over. Bren, what—"

  "Shut up, I'm thinking. Just let me fucking think here."

  The lepps had regrouped and my veil remained, pushing back, but not for long more. The thing in me was weakening. Any second now we would both fail.

  "Esmerelda," I whispered. "Listen. The ones from the other side, they can come back again. They just need help. We can do it, and you won't be alone, or hungry—"