A Cage of Roots (13 page)

Goll clapped his hands once, sending rings of blue speeding from him in a wave of energy. Sean looked back
towards the keep as Fergus ran, just in time to see the grey clouds gape in vivid light and spit ten bright bolts of white lightning down onto the keep, casting it all in fire.

For the last kilometre or two, Finny had noticed the forest change. Where they had been surrounded by curtains of green, leaves now curled brown and dying. The carpet of fern gave way to dense muck, and the hike became a monotonous struggle of pulling one leg free of the mire just for it to sink back at the next step. The trees, once tall and elegant, bent their backs like grey old men, while branches grew thorns that bit and jabbed with the slightest contact. Finny was able to match Lann’s slow pace through the bog, and indeed it was the uncle who had to stop more than once.

Lann held out a hand and stopped again, this time slipping his pack from his shoulder. Sweat gathered on his angular brow, and he had to catch his breath before speaking.

‘We’re here’ was all he said.

They stood on the lip of a wide basin, which sloped deeply down into a treeless bowl. The sky was overcast, but still sent light to the woods around them; in the dip it was dim and ashen.

‘Down there, lad. That’s where you have to go.’

Finny was very frightened. He didn’t feel ready at all.

‘There’s nothing down there though,’ he said, stalling for time.

Lann looked at him with his silvery-grey eyes. He placed one hand on the boy’s shoulder. It was the first time he had ever shown any kind of warmth.

‘There is, Finny. Go down and find it. I will wait for you, and pray that you come back.’ He added: ‘Be true to yourself, lad. That is the only advice I can give you. Be true and cast off the mask.’ He said nothing more, backing away from the edge and leaving Finny alone in the dullness.

There was no movement anywhere. The air didn’t stir, it was neither warm nor cool. Nothing rustled, no leaf shivered, no bird sang. Everything was still, frozen in time. Finny felt weak and sick. He wanted to run, or even just to lie down and shut his eyes. He wished he was home, and for the first time he stopped thinking about his friend. His only thought was that he should not be here; that the nightmare had gone on too long, too deep. Then, almost against his will, he stepped forward, over the lip and carefully down the bank.

When Finny reached the bottom, he could barely see in front of him. Whatever light hung above in the grey sky stayed there, silhouetting the ring of dead trees at the top. There was no sound, and the queasiness in his guts intensified, rolling
in his stomach and weakening his knees. He took another step towards the centre. He heard the squelch of a step in the gloom ahead, and slowly someone emerged from the shadow, like a spectre through a wall. It was his mother.

‘Mum!’ he shouted, heart leaping with hope and confusion.

‘Oscar, thank God!’ she called back through tears of relief. ‘I’ve been so worried! I thought you were dead! Thank God! Thank God! Thank God!’ she laughed.

Finny wanted to run to her, but first, ignoring his own tears, he asked, ‘
How?
Why? How are you
here
? I don’t understand!’

‘I’ve been looking for you, love! We all have! I should have known you’d be here in Coleman’s! But you’ve been gone for days. We have been so, so worried. Everyone is looking for you!’

Coleman’s? He was in
Coleman’s
? This was starting to make a strange kind of sense. He looked up to the edge for signs of Ayla’s uncle, but there was nothing there except the shadows of trees. Had he been lost here all along? He took another step forward.

‘You really were selfish in running away like that, love,’ she said. The words shocked him, and he stopped. ‘There’s someone here who wants a word.’

And with that she slipped back into the gloom. A moment later his father appeared.

‘Osc’,’ he said, with only a slight smile. ‘We’ve found you at last.’

‘Dad! You’re here too!’

‘We’ve all been out for days looking for you, Osc’. We haven’t slept. Your mum’s been beside herself with worry. You’ve really hurt her, bucko.’

‘
I’ve
hurt her?’ His face flushed hot with sudden anger. ‘
I’ve
hurt her? How about you!’

This was ridiculous, he thought. How can we be fighting about this now? He was just so happy that the nightmare was over, and that he could go home. But there was Dad, ruining it.

‘I know I’ve hurt your mum, Osc’. I ran away too, I guess, just like you. But I came back. We were going to get back together. We
were
, until all this happened.’

Finny nearly got sick. ‘Why are you telling me this?’ he pleaded. He couldn’t understand why his dad was being so spiteful when they should be running to each other. They should be hugging so tightly. It would be their first one in years.

Finny stuck his chin out. ‘Whatever!’ he spat, defiantly. ‘I don’t need you to be back with Mum. I don’t need either of you!’ He didn’t even believe himself.

‘Same old Osc’. It’s all about you, isn’t it, big fella?’ said his dad, before turning his back and retreating into the gloom.

His mother returned. ‘Oscar, why are you being so
nasty? You’ve already ruined our relationship; the least you can do is be grateful when we’ve gone to so much trouble to find you.’ There was no love in her voice.

Finny choked back a glut of tears, but they broke through in a torrent, filling his eyes with salt. He screamed, ‘I’ve ruined
your
relationship?
What
relationship? There never
was
a relationship! I don’t need you! I don’t want you! I hate both of you!’

The words left a bitter sting on his tongue. He wiped snot from his nose, scowling at his mother.

‘You hate us?’ she replied, calmly. ‘You think we’re
your
biggest fans? We were happy before you came along. We were free.’

Finny’s heart felt like it was being stood on. He stared in shock at the woman in front of him. The woman that was meant to care for him, protect him, love him. He couldn’t lie any longer.

‘I do love you, Mum. I do need you. I need both of you. And I want you to be happy.’

‘It’s too late for that. Now come over here and let’s go home. We can work out what to do with you then.’

His mother held out her left hand, beckoning him to her. He sniffed and walked towards her.

Wiping a sleeve across his nose, he could see her long brown hair, her friendly round face, those blue eyes that normally smiled but now were lined and grim. He looked
at her outstretched hand. The wedding band glistened, despite the lack of light.

And then he knew.

‘You’re not my mother.’

The woman frowned.

‘Oscar, don’t be silly now …’

‘You’re not my mother!’ he roared and sprinted towards her. A surge of anger carried him forward, and he dived at the creature just as it morphed into the shape of his father. He landed jarringly and they both tumbled in the muck. Finny was agile and strong and sprang to his feet, pinning the thing down with his knees on its shoulders.

It was a sickening sight: a vile, featureless thing, twisting and changing before his eyes. It flitted between forms of his mother, his father; even Sean, Benvy, Ayla … And then strangers: men and women and children. Hair grew in seconds and then receded; shoulders broadened and narrowed; the jaw shifted with nauseating clicks; skin morphed into tunics, armour, shirts, jeans. Its bones shuddered and snapped and rolled around the sack of its pale pink skin as it changed, all the while hissing at him and fighting to get him off.

Finny held it fast with all his strength until it stopped struggling and slowly reverted to its true shape. It looked at him with wide, ebony eyes. It had no nose, but a wide mouth full of pin-like teeth. It freed one arm and raised a
hand, pointing with a long, thin finger. Finny looked, and saw a huge sword on the ground beside them. Its blade was wide, tapering near the handle. The grip was bound in leather, and the edge was lined with kinks.

He readied himself and, as quick as he could, pushed himself off the creature and scrambled over to the blade and lifted it. It was surprisingly light. He waved it threateningly at the monster.

‘Come on then!’ he shouted.

The creature looked back at him, blinked once and began to shudder noisily. Bones clacked and flesh sucked, stretching and sinking and folding, until Finny stood facing a clone of himself. The doppelganger sneered, and spat on the ground between them. It paced, growing angrier with every step, and spat again, its face puce with rage, the teeth still needle-sharp. It shouted at the air in guttural barks that made little sense but for one word:
hate
. Finny recognised the fury in the creature; could feel it gurgling inside him too, like a thick, boiling soup. It filled him with the urge to thrash and rip and stamp.

‘
Stop!
’ he shouted, and the thing did just the same, spitting the word back in perfect unison.

‘
Stop!
’ he screamed again, and still the creature matched him like a mirror. Finny burned with loathing of this twisted, vile version of himself. He wanted to hack at it, to beat it down and never face it again.

Then all at once the thing stopped. It retreated back to the shadows, with a menacing smile that jarred Finny out of his wrath. A second later, it emerged again, holding a sword, just like the one Finny had. Finny looked down. He was holding a branch that swarmed with woodlice. He dropped the branch in horror and watched it melt away, gorged on by the lice that then scurried away into the mud. The thing seemed to
laugh
. And then it lunged at Finny.

It swung the blade of its sword in wild, angry arcs, as Finny stumbled back and fell over his own feet. He rolled away just as the creature brought the sword down, and down again, in frantic, blood-hungry chops. Finny found time to scamper away when the thing struggled for a moment to release its weapon from the mud.

He saw the creature’s flesh quiver and bones shunt again for one final horror: it took the form of Ayla. With the sword freed, it approached Finny again to resume its frenzy. The fact that it looked like his lost friend sickened Finny to the pit of his stomach. There was no more time for him to panic, nor anywhere for him to run.
If I die then Ayla dies
, he told himself, surprised by his own momentary calm. He ran at the thing headlong.

Diving under the blade as it cleaved the air over his head, Finny muscled in right under the monster’s nose, refusing to look at the contorted likeness of Ayla, allowing instinct to drive his movements.

In close, he suddenly felt in a kind of control. He imagined himself in a match, fighting against bigger lads and bigger odds as always. He ducked and side-stepped and twirled among the thrashing limbs, driving his elbow into the creature’s side when he could, and kicking out at its ankles. Then he would sprint out, avoid a swinging arm and circle the thing. He picked his moments to attack, diving in when he knew his opponent was flustered.

The creature grew more rabid with every blow, forgetting to hold onto any kind of form and instead twisting itself into a demented mess of half-formed people. Finny shouldered and pushed, always just evading the blows at the last second. He was waiting for the perfect moment.

In its tantrum the thing lost its grip on the sword. Finny saw his chance and hit at the butt of the hilt, then threw himself at the weapon on the ground. When he held it aloft, the blade seemed to light up, just for a second in a flush of blue, before the creature threw itself down to crush the boy and, in doing so, skewered itself straight through the chest. It gurgled out its last breath in a slow trickle of black blood.

Finny hauled himself from under the dead creature and lay in the mud, struggling for breath. Then he climbed back up the bank with his prize. At the top, a strong arm was waiting to haul him up. Lann smiled at him for only the second time, and took Finny into his arms in a long embrace.

Inside, the cave was icy cold. Benvy’s breath came out in plumes, and her jaw began to chatter uncontrollably. She pulled her hood over her head and her sleeves over her hands, tucking them under her armpits. Her eyes adjusted slightly to the murky light, and she could make out the cavern walls, glistening with wet. The tunnel went downwards, and her fear grew with every step. Still she moved forward.