Page 34 of Heart of the Wren (Haunted Hearts: Season of the Witch #2)

DARA

EXPLAINING IT all to Bullseye took some time and more than one glass of whiskey. He kept vacillating between thinking we were all mad to thinking we were all part of some cult. Through it all, Lorcan hardly spoke. He sat in his armchair and stared at the floor.

I wanted to take Lorcan upstairs, tuck him into bed, and assure him everything would be alright.

But I knew better. “I need your help, Carol.” I led them all into the kitchen.

I didn’t want to contribute more to Lorcan’s worries but I didn’t have much choice.

If Clíona was manifesting in a physical form and playing with the fabric of reality, we were nearing a climax.

The clock was ticking. “Lorcan dug up some ancient gold and now something very old and very powerful is either angry with him or has taken a shine to him. I think she’s playing out the story of the warrior. ”

“The story from your book?” Carol asked. “Clíona elopes with a warrior named Ciabhán but is left in his boat where a wave drowns her.”

“That’s the one. I’ve seen a lot of water imagery in my meditations and visions. It makes a certain amount of sense. But we’re so far inland…”

“There’s a boat in the shed,” Eddie said.

I thought all the blood had drained from my body. “Under no circumstances can we allow Lorcan anywhere near the shed. If she’s trying to take him away with her, she might bring him there first. She might use the boat as a gateway to the Otherworld.”

“If? Might?” Carol asked. “You’re giving us if and m ight? Didn’t you say you talk to your gods and goddesses all the time?”

I rubbed my head as I paced. “Not all the time, just every now and then. But since I’ve come here I haven’t been able to make contact with them.

It’s, I don’t know, it’s out of their jurisdiction.

This is Clíona’s territory and she won’t talk to me directly.

Although, I think we can lull her back to sleep but I need your help to do it. ”

Carol eyed me up and down. “Why me?”

“I had a vision when I was meditating. I wasn’t sure what it meant at the time but I think you’re the key to fixing this. Your ESP. Your gift.”

She swallowed and hugged herself. “What do I have to do?”

“I can show you, it’ll be easy for someone like you. "

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Bullseye said. “What is she going to have to do? Is it safe?”

“I’ll be with her the whole time. I won’t let anything bad happen to her.” I hoped I sounded convincing. “Lads, can you clear a space? Push the furniture right back out of the way.” I rummaged around my pockets for a stick of chalk and began drawing a circle on the kitchen tiles.

“You’re mopping this all up when we’re done,” Lorcan said.

I laughed, mostly out of relief to hear him talking again. “We need to contact the goddess Clíona,” I said. “I don’t know if I can do it on my own: she’s very strong and it might take too long to reach her. But you’re like a shortcut to the other side, Carol.”

I sat cross-legged, and she knelt in front of me. I decided to keep my clothes on, for the sake of expediency.

“Breathe deeply. And, like I showed you upstairs, see the coloured numbers counting down in your mind. Breathe In. Breathe Out. Good. Very good. We seek contact with the goddess Clíona.” I encouraged Carol to repeat the phrase three times. Each one louder than the last.

On the final intoning, she shuddered. “An electric shock went up my spine. I can see circles. Waves. In my mind. Like radio waves? They’re pulsing out of me.”

“Good!” I said. “Amazing. Brilliant. You’re a natural! Keep thinking about Clíona. Keep her name in your mind. Keep—”

The room plunged into darkness except for the circle of chalk which began to glow like a neon light.

Carol opened her eyes. “What’s happening? ”

I slowly got up. “We’ve made contact.”

Above us, the darkness rippled and I was filled with the sense of being on a loamy forest floor, beneath a canopy of trees.

Specks of light broke through, growing larger and larger until all round us the darkness receded and we found ourselves on a rock in the middle of a vast emerald ocean.

The waves rippled and sparkled into the moonlight.

Carol took a step forward but I gently took her by the elbow. “Stay in the circle. It isn’t safe.”

“The water is so calm,” Carol said.

“You’re in another world now,” I said. “The rules are different here. Call out to her.”

“Clíona! We want to talk to ya,” Carol said.

A distant rumble of thunder was our answer. And then a chirp.

A sparrow landed on the rock, outside the glowing circle. Then a robin. Then a goldfinch. They hopped and pecked at the ground.

“I don’t…” Carol said.

I kept hold of her elbow. “Wait.”

Another chirp drew our attention to the emerald sea where a small brown bird darted over the waves, wings beating frantically.

It flew around our heads, making us duck out of the way.

It rose up and dived, over and over, until coming to rest on the rock, where I noticed the cream stripe behind each eye. It picked at its feathers.

“A wren,” I said, whereupon the other three birds immediately assailed it, tearing feathers from its body, gouging out its black eyes and leaving behind a bloody, twitching lump .

Carol shrieked and suddenly the birds were gone. As were the sea and the rock on which we stood. The kitchen had returned, where I still sat and Carol still knelt.

She fell back, aghast. Eddie raced to her side, crossing the circle. I moved my hands in the air in front of me, tracing an invisible ring, then I clapped once to close the magic circle and declare the working over. “So mote it be.”

“What happened?” Eddie asked.

Carol rose, turning around and around, brushing herself down. “Did you see them? The birds? And the sea. And, and, and the rock, and the waves?”

Eddie cupped her face in his hands. “What are you on about? You two have been sitting there in silence for the last five minutes. I thought you’d fallen asleep.”

“Did it work?” Lorcan asked.

Before I could answer the lights in the room dimmed, flickered, and went out.

“Are you sure you didn’t just make things worse?” Bullseye asked. “It feels like you just made things worse.”

Lorcan and Eddie fished some candles from a drawer. In the candlelight, the five of us huddled close together.

Carol breathed heavily, her breath turning to vapour as the temperature in the room plummeted. Eddie held her tightly for warmth.

I paced around, inside the chalk circle. “A wren… a wren…”

“The king of all birds,” Carol said .

I eyed her sideways.

“It’s the Wren Day song,” she said. “It’s today. St Stephen’s Day.”

The distant and familiar drumbeat of a bodhrán pierced the silence.

I pulled up my sleeves. The fine, gingery hairs on my forearm lifted, my ears prickled, and my insides rumbled.

Taking a candle, I hurried to the front door and flung it open.

The flurry of snow had settled into a wafer-thin blanket on the farmyard.

With the floodlight blasting, the whole farm took on an otherworldly glow.

The others quickly joined me.

Eddie pointed to the arched bridge. “Who’re they?”

A number of figures moved slowly forward.

Spiky edged, rustling, hopping from foot to foot, they inched closer and closer until they came into the glare of the floodlight.

Two figures wearing masks of straw, and a third clad head to toe in the stuff, decorated with ribbons.

A walking haystack. Mairead was with them, banging her drum.

Or the goddess Clíona in Mairead’s form.

Bullseye shouted and balled his fists. “Bloody kids from the village. Get out of it, ye little shites! I know your mammies!”

Carol grabbed his arm. “Daddy, stop. They not from the village.”

I backed us all away. “And they not kids.”

“What are they?” Carol asked. “They feel wrong. I can see them in my head and in my eyes but they don't match up... They're not right.”

“Look.” I pointed to the ground as we backed into the farmhouse. “Look at the snow behind them. There aren’t any footprints.”

Mairead pointed to my holly wreath hanging on the front door. My wreath of protection. She flicked her finger in the air and the wreath disintegrated, shedding its twine, its leaves, its berries, even the willow hoop unravelled, spilling onto the ground.

I slammed the door closed and took Lorcan by the shoulders. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was wrong. There is a cycle being played out here, a pattern. But it’s not the one I thought. You’re not the warrior, and you’re not the poet, and you’re not the groom. You’re the wren.”