Authors: Debbie Johnson
I pulled back some of the off-greenery, and saw a stile in the fence, complete with a little hop-up step to help you over. On the other side was a kitten. Black and white and so small it could fit into the palm of my hand. It was tangled in the trailing fingers of the briar, sharp thorns stabbing into its soft fur. Its coat was drenched with the rain, laid so flat to its puny body that I could see the shape of its skull clearly outlined.
‘Oh, poo …’ I muttered, peering over the stile, just as an ominous roll of thunder started to lumber in from somewhere to the west. Lightning followed seconds after, for one eye-searing moment drenching the sky in vivid platinum stripes.
I blinked away rain, looked over the stile again. There was nobody there. No thunder gods had appeared wielding hammers. No men in black. No soul-sucking Tuatha. No Hooded Claw. Nobody for miles and miles. Just me and this teeny tiny creature, writhing against the briar and getting itself more and more tangled each time it tried to roll free.
Nobody there but little old me, soaking wet, in an ear-splitting thunderstorm, weighing up whether or not to save the life of a defenceless kitten who just happened to be trapped on the other side of Fionnula’s boundary. Double poo.
I did another quick danger-check, then hoisted up the flapping wings of my coat and climbed – not very elegantly and with a few swear words involved – over the stile. I jumped down with a squelch and stepped towards the kitten, kneeling down in the muddy grass and making what I hoped were soothing cooing noises as I took it into my hands. The cooing was all but drowned out by the drum roll of thunder and the subsequent shock of bright light. I don’t know who was more spooked, me or the kitten.
The poor thing squeaked and squealed as I tried to pry it free of the thorny tendrils, pricking my fingers so much drops of blood started to spot its fur. Eventually, I managed to pull the last cord away, taking a clump of downy-soft white hair with it. As soon as I did, the kitten wriggled out of my hands, did an amazingly acrobatic backflip, and ran away, without so much as a thank-you meow. Typical.
I stood up, wiped my mud- and blood-smeared hands on the thighs of my jeans, and pulled my hood tighter around my head. It was so windy I felt like my head could come clear off, like a scarecrow, and go tumbling off across the field, still talking to itself.
‘
Hello again, Lily
,’ said the voice in my head. ‘
I know you haven’t heard from me for a while, but I thought you might need my help
.’
I physically jumped at the sound, only just keeping my boots steady in the mud pool around the stile, holding on to the wooden rail to calm myself. No, I hadn’t heard from Fintan for a while, and I’d seen and learned a lot since then. I’d been in Gabriel’s mind. I’d seen the Otherworld in a whole new light. And I’d found out that Fintan had definitely been behind the deaths of my sisters.
I didn’t want his voice in my head. Or anyone else’s. It had to be first on my hit list when I got back to Fionnula’s. If I got back.
‘What do you want, Fintan?’ I asked.
‘
Ah. I see we’ve been informally introduced. I’m sure you’ve heard terrible things about me, Lily
.’
I stayed silent. I had. And I believed them. But still, Fintan had never actually lied to me, made a move against me, or broken his word. That was enough for me to keep his occasional presence in my mind a secret. Everyone needs their secrets, and as my mind seems to get treated like a rummage sale by all and sundry these days, me especially.
‘Where have you been?’ I said. ‘Out marauding and plotting the downfall of humanity?’
I sounded braver than I felt, but this was the New Me. The Gerra Grip, Girl me. The me that Coleen would be proud of … Maybe some good had rubbed off from her after all.
‘
Oh no, I don’t maraud
,’ he said, disdain dripping from every word.
‘I’m more of a strategist. And I think you already know that I’ve been unable to contact you while you were on Fionnula’s land. Hardly fair, do you think?’
I pondered. I’d been right. It was Fionnula’s power keeping him out. And all it had taken was stupid me to climb over a stile to let him back in. She’d warned me not to cross the boundaries, and I’d ignored her at the first sign of feline fluff. I’d be in for a proper bollocking when I got back.
‘Did you get that poor kitten wrapped up in thorns just to get me over here?’ I asked.
For some reason, that bothered me as much as anything right now.
‘Would you believe me if I said it was serendipity?’
he replied.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Then you’d be right. No harm done: it’s scampered away now
,
back to a cosy hearth, or chewing a mouse or whatever it wants to do. It was a pawn, Lily. A sacrifice to get you here, so I could talk to you. Set a few facts straight, as I can imagine what Fionnula is filling your mind with.’
‘She’s been very helpful with make-up tips,’ I said, spoiling the bravado slightly when the latest crash of thunder made me leap into the air. I screwed up my eyes and waited for the lightning to follow.
‘Has she been explaining about your visions?’
‘No … no, we haven’t got to that part yet,’ I replied reluctantly. It felt wrong to be telling him anything, but there was no point lying. I’m really crap at it.
‘I see. It’s important, though, isn’t it? For you to be able to control them? You’ve spent your whole life tortured by them. Spent your whole life scarred by your loneliness, never able to reach out and touch someone, never able to be held or comforted. Never able to share physical intimacy with anyone. No hand holding, no kissing, not even a casual hug from a friend. Not without anxiety. Never able to relax unless you’re on your own
,
scared of even brushing by someone on the street for fear of what you might see. How has that affected you, Lily?’
I stayed schtum. That, frankly, was my business, but I felt my spine stiffen as he made his list. He was right, about it all. If I survived all of this nonsense, I’d need to be in therapy for the rest of my bloody life. My inner child was well and truly pissed off.
‘Well, don’t worry,’
he said.
‘Fionnula will be able to show you. She’s a good teacher, despite her many faults, and it’s actually quite simple to do. Very simple, in fact. So simple, Lily, that really, you should have been able to do it by the age of ten. Your sisters were older than you. They’d already started their training before their … untimely deaths. Fionnula did it for them. The visions had started by then, but because of Fionnula, they were able to control them, live normally. Can you imagine how different your life would have been if you’d had that training, Lily? If you didn’t have your visions?’
I really couldn’t. I would have been a different person. I would have had a different life. I’d only need a few years of therapy instead of decades. I’d have been able to reach out in ways I’ve only ever fantasised about, and even the fantasies stopped once I got through my teens.
At six, all I’d wanted was a cuddle, for someone to tuck me in at night, stroke my face like my mummy used to, hold me tight and tell me everything was going to be OK. I was used to being loved, to being hugged, to having my small hand held as we skipped to the shops for an ice cream. I lost that overnight, and badly wanted it back. Wanted to feel that safe again, to lie in someone’s arms giggling and listening to stories and knowing that I was the most precious thing in the world. But even at that age, I’d realised I shouldn’t touch Coleen, or anyone else. Because if I did, scary things happened. Bad things.
By fifteen, like most girls, all I’d wanted was a boyfriend – one I could kiss without seeing him halfway through a colonoscopy in a few decades’ time. And by eighteen, I’d realised there was no use torturing myself with it any more. I was never going to have a boyfriend. There was no white knight. I was Lily McCain, and I saw dying people. It wasn’t ever going to lend itself to romance, or even to friendship. I was only safe when I was alone. Not a barrel load of laughs, but that’s just the way it was. No point crying over milk that’s been spilled, stood in, and gone sour.
So what if my sisters had been trained, and I hadn’t? For some reason, maybe to do with Fintan’s slaughtering of them, I’d had to go through it alone. Yes, it had been hell, but on the plus side, I wasn’t dead.
‘Fintan,’ I said. ‘Do you have a point? Because I’m really, really wet now.’
‘Very brave, Lily. Yes, I do have a point. The reason you weren’t trained, the reason you were taken away and placed in Coleen’s hands, the reason you were left to the fate of your visions when you needn’t have suffered them at all is this: the man you call Gabriel chose it for you. He decided it, Lily. He not only chose Coleen, he chose to leave you with the visions, and with no way of controlling them. He chose to let you grow up like that. He’s also a strategist – and that was one of his gems. To let you drag yourself up, damaged and alone and broken. So, whatever sweet lies he tells you, remember that: it’s all his fault.’
I felt a blur in my eyes, and realised I’d been staring so long without blinking that rain had gathered inside my lower lids. I shook it away, and stood as tall as I could, my knuckles white as I grabbed the fence. I felt all soft and slippy inside, and didn’t want to fall. Not during a brain invasion.
‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘I already know he took me to Coleen. He said it was to keep me safe. From you.’
‘Really? Well, he would, wouldn’t he? Yes, he took you to Coleen for that reason, trying to hide you away. But what do you think was the reason he left you with your visions, Lily? What advantage did that give him? He could have sent Fionnula, as he had to your sisters, within a year or so. He could have done that and still kept you safe. But he forbade it. He ruled that you should not receive the same training, that she shouldn’t show you how to protect yourself. He barred Fionnula from contacting you, even though she wanted to, even though it was the only way of giving you any peace. It was him – he decided to leave you, alone, with Coleen, unable to touch or be touched, rigid with fear every time someone stood next to you in the playground. So I ask again, Lily: how has that affected you?’
The rain had turned my hair into thick auburn ropes the colour of rusty nails, whirling in the wind and lashing me across my icy cheeks. I saw it happening, but could barely feel the contact. I couldn’t feel my hands, or my feet. I couldn’t feel anything. I’d known Gabriel had secrets, but this? This was … too much.
I pondered Fintan’s question, the one he’d repeated. How had it affected me? And why had Gabriel – the man who loved me, and the man who was also ruthless beyond imagining – decided to deliberately force me to live like that, if it could have been so easily avoided?
‘It made me … alone,’ I said at last. I could have elaborated: it made me lonely, isolated, sad, practical, independent, frightened, strong, weak. All of those things were true. But mainly, it had made me very alone. Surrounded by people, by life, but afraid to touch. Scared of everything but my own company.
‘Yes. Alone. And pure, Lily. Free from ties, free from relationships, free from any kind of emotional or physical entanglement. It kept you alone – like you were spending your life in quarantine, waiting. Waiting for him to come along and kiss it all better. He distanced you from everyone else; he put your life on hold until he was ready. He left you completely and utterly alone, until it suited him. Until he needed you.’
Could that be true? Was that what Gabriel had planned? Had he done it to keep me apart from other people, so I’d be ready and waiting when he arrived for me? So I’d feel like I had nothing to lose by giving myself to him? Had he wanted my real life to be so miserable that I wouldn’t think twice about giving it up to run off and play house with him?
Was he really that cruel, that devious? I knew the answer already. Yes, he was. He could be, no matter how much love I’d seen in him. He could be that ruthless, because his love for me, and the love he wanted in return, was nothing compared to his duty. His calling. His bloody destiny – and, so he’d have me believe, mine as well.
The thunder had started to fade, rolling away to another hill, another place. Another girl standing in the rain, wondering why she’d been stupid enough to think she could even try to love.
‘Lily? What are you thinking?’
Fintan said.
I ignored him. Turned around and climbed back over that stile. I felt a strange silence when I landed back on Fionnula’s land, like someone had turned off the static in my brain.
I set off back to the cottage. Things were about to change.
I stamped all the way back. I was aiming for angry yet dignified, but was hindered by the fact that every footstep was accompanied by an obscene squelching sound.
I didn’t even get to do a dramatic door-slamming entrance, as Fionnula and Carmel were already outside to meet me. Carmel was drenched to the bone, her black blouse a second skin, raindrops gathering and dropping from the end of her slightly prominent nose.
Fionnula had wrapped herself in a flouncy lilac poncho affair that made a small tent around her shoulders, her hair starting to frizz in the storm.
Both of them ran over towards me as I approached the cottage, Carmel grabbing my shoulders and shaking me, hard. I pulled away, ready to lash out at somebody and not wanting it to be her.
‘Where the fuck have you been? Are you all right?’ she demanded, big whisky eyes rolling wildly, like a spooked horse at the starting line.
‘No! I’m not! But what do you know about it? Was it her?’ I said, gesturing towards Fionnula with a nod of my head. It’d be just like her to have some kind of privacy-invading magical CCTV set up around her home.
‘It wasn’t me,’ said Fionnula quietly, her tone calmer but her eyes just as wide. Whatever I’d done, I’d triggered DEFCON 1 back here. She reached out, stroked a sopping rope of hair back from my eyes.
‘It was Carmel,’ she said gently. ‘She sensed something. I know it hasn’t happened to her before, but things are different now. She’s your Champion, and she sensed danger.’