Midnight's Choice (19 page)

That evening, Uncle Maurice was in an unusually cheerful mood. When he had finished his dinner he pushed his plate aside and said, ‘Well, I've cracked it.'

‘Cracked what?' said Aunt Deirdre.

‘The sale of that piece of land. There's a developer in Ennis who is going to buy it off me to build a holiday village.'

Orla was always slow at eating, and this evening was no exception. Her plate was more than half full, but she put down her knife and fork in a very conclusive way. She looked across at Brian who, it seemed to Tess, had suddenly gone pale. He glanced back at his sister, and Tess thought she detected an expression of alarm in his eyes.

‘You know. A place where tourists can come and buy a house, or rent one,' Uncle Maurice went on. ‘Great spot for it. I'll be getting the deeds from the solicitor in the next couple of days. I'll need your signature, Deirdre.'

Aunt Deirdre nodded passively. But Orla said, ‘Do we have to sell it, Daddy? Can't we keep it?'

‘That piece of land is no use to us at all,' her father replied. ‘You know that as well as I do. And think what we could do with the money!'

‘But what about Uncle Declan?' said Orla. ‘Couldn't we ...?'

She got no further. If looks could kill she would have shrivelled in an instant beneath her father's furious stare.

‘I'll not have that name mentioned at this table,' said Uncle Maurice, his voice conveying a growing danger. ‘And as for the land, when one of you is running this farm let you run it as you want. In the meantime I'll make the decisions.'

His statement met with silence. Tess couldn't understand what was going on, but it was fairly clear that it was not a good time to ask. Her aunt was as white as the wall behind her. The rest of the family prayed that the fuse would go out before it lit the powder. And for once, it did.

After dinner, Tess went with Uncle Maurice and Brian to do the evening milking. Tess put out the nuts while Brian let the cows in. Bran and Sceolan made little rushes at their heels, but it was only for show. The cows knew exactly where to go and needed no encouragement. When the first lot were all in their stalls, Tess went round with the bucket of udder wash. Brian came along behind her, attaching the cups. Uncle Maurice stayed up near the machine's motor, checking that everything was going smoothly and doing a chemical test on the milk.

When the machine was set up and doing its work, Tess leant against the railings beside Brian.

‘Why was Orla upset?' she asked. ‘About your dad selling the land?'

Brian looked at her searchingly, as though he was trying to decide whether she was trustworthy. ‘I suppose she thinks it's our land as well,' he said.

Tess nodded. ‘Is it a big piece of land?'

Again Brian looked at her strangely, as though the information he was about to give was privileged in some way. He glanced around him, then shrugged.

‘He has been wanting to sell it for years. Ever since he took over the farm from his father.' But if Brian planned to say more he didn't get round to it, because at that moment Uncle Maurice came marching towards them.

‘Are you checking them?' he asked, knowing that they weren't.

Brian moved off and Tess followed, making sure that the cups were properly in place. The conversation had left her with more questions than answers, but her uncle seemed to be keeping a close eye on her and she couldn't get close enough to Brian to ask more. Some of the cows had finished their nuts, and turned to look at her as she worked around them. And although she had never found it very interesting to be a cow, she found their placid temperaments calming and she enjoyed their dry, philosophical humour. They had no language as such, but their expressions and movements told their stories. Best of all, Tess enjoyed the secret she learnt; that although Uncle Maurice considered himself to be their lord and master, they regarded him fondly as a rather bossy calf, who drank more milk than he ought to but was, like all young, ignorant things, tolerated.

When they had finished with the first lot of cows they moved quickly on to the second, and then the third. It wasn't long before the milking was over, and afterwards, while Brian and his father hosed down the floor of the shed, Tess went out into the yard.

The sun had dropped on to the horizon, where it sat like a vast, dazzling headlight. It lit the mountain in a way that Tess hadn't seen before, accentuating its faults and folds so that it looked pliable, more like flesh than rock. It made her feel strange, tingly, and the feeling intensified when she noticed a black bird approaching through the sky above the meadows. At first she took it for a crow, but as it grew closer she realised that it was far too big. It could only be a raven, and along with that realisation came another which sent shivers through her bones. She didn't know how, but she was quite certain that it was looking for her. As it flew over, it turned its head and looked down with one black eye, then wheeled above the farmyard, dropping lower, watching her all the time. The tingle turned to a bone-deep chill as the bird looked her straight in the eye, then swept up into the heights again, its huge wings making a whipping sound in the air. She watched it as it soared high and turned back towards the mountain, then she realised that she was not alone. Brian and Uncle Maurice had come out into the yard and were looking from her to the retreating bird with curious expressions. Then, as though in a conspiracy of silence, they turned and walked away from her, back towards the farm buildings. Tess wanted to call after them and ask them if they had seen what she had, but Orla emerged from the house.

‘Want a game of Monopoly?' she said.

Tess stared at her, readjusting her mind to everyday existence. Her spirit was in turmoil, still disconcerted by the raven's visit but at the same time longing for the freedom to investigate. With an effort she managed a faint smile.

‘Just one, then,' she said. ‘If I can be the ship.'

T
HAT NIGHT, IT SEEMED
to take forever to get dark. Now that there was no rain, the silence outside was profound; a mystery waiting to be explored. In the other bed, Orla wheezed painfully but, since she hadn't moved for more than an hour, Tess assumed she was asleep.

Something, a late bird or an early bat, fluttered past the window. Tess sighed and turned on to her back, willing the night to come. She wished that there was someone she could talk to. Not just anyone, but someone who would sympathise with what she was going through. Martin would understand; the boy who had learnt how to become a vampire but had opted in the end to be human. Lizzie would be all right as well, even if she did talk in riddles. But the person that Tess missed most of all was Kevin; her first and best friend. She wished she could see him now. She could imagine him sitting beside her, listening thoughtfully, understanding her frustration, knowing how it felt to be facing those last few days, knowing how difficult it was to come to a decision.

She realised that she was worried about him. Martin would settle down, sooner or later. He didn't admit it, but he was working hard at school, and he rarely needed to visit the counsellor who had eventually helped him to come to terms with the trauma of his father's death. His mother adored him and, although he was unlikely to be conventional, Martin would undoubtedly find a way to fit in and look after himself. But Kevin wasn't so lucky. When he had returned from his adventures and could no longer Switch, he had tried to rejoin his estranged family. It hadn't worked. They no longer understood each other, and Kevin couldn't fit in. Instead, he joined the increasing number of young people living on the streets.

He said it was different for him; said that he had spent much of his life scavenging as a rat and this was a kind of continuation of it. But from where Tess was standing it didn't look so noble. The streets and derelict buildings of Dublin provided a mean and cold existence for a boy, and although Tess helped him out as much as she could, she was afraid that if he didn't find a way of supporting himself he would sooner or later be compelled to turn to crime. And if that happened, Tess had no idea what would become of him.

Her thoughts were disturbed by a scuttling sound behind the wainscot. She sat up carefully, silently. There was an untidy hole in the boards where the radiator pipe had been brought through relatively recently. As Tess watched, a brown nose and a set of twitching whiskers appeared, followed by a pair of bright, black eyes. Tess smiled, wondering how it was that her life had been populated by rats ever since she had first met Kevin. She was just about to address the newcomer in the visual language that she had learnt from the Dublin city rats when a door opened downstairs and Uncle Maurice's voice carried up the stairs, complaining about the film which had, apparently, just ended. The rat nose disappeared, but Tess's spirits lifted. Soon her aunt and uncle would be in bed, and she would be free.

When the human sounds finally came to an end, the rat sounds began. Tess heard the scuffles above her head as they left their nests in the roof-space and she listened to the rattle of loose plaster in the walls as they travelled down through the house. Before long, apart from Orla's breathing, all was quiet again. Still Tess waited until, eventually, she was sure that the household was asleep. Then she slipped out of bed and went to the window.

A gibbous moon was out, riding high above the mountains, making them seem closer than they were. A few small clouds hovered, becalmed, back-lit by the moon. Tess was torn between her desire to investigate the mysterious and beautiful woods and her fear of the gliding figure she had, or thought she had, seen. It would be better, perhaps, to return in daylight. In the meantime, a visit with the farmhouse rats would go a long way towards alleviating her boredom.

She was just on the point of turning back into the room when Orla spoke, sending an electric tide through Tess's blood.

‘Tess?'

Tess caught her breath. ‘Yes?'

‘Can't you sleep?'

‘No.'

‘Nor me.'

Tess had a sudden vision of the two of them playing Monopoly until dawn. She prayed that Orla wouldn't think of it. But Orla had other things on her mind and Tess heard the familiar hiss and gasp as she took a dose from her inhaler. When she had let go of the medicated breath, Orla said, ‘What are you looking at?'

Tess shrugged. ‘I don't know. The moon. The mountains.'

Orla was silent for a moment and then, in a voice that betrayed a slight apprehension, she said, ‘Do you believe in the Good People, Tess?'

‘The Good People? Who are the Good People?'

‘Fairies,' said Orla.

Another cold flush began in Tess's spine, but she caught herself and laughed it off. ‘Fairies? You've got to be joking.'

But Orla didn't laugh. In the silence that followed her breathing became easier. Tess got back into bed and, seething inside, she waited. Her thoughts began to chase each other in irritated circles, but after a few minutes she was distracted by an unexpected sound.

At first she thought that someone had put on a video downstairs. The noise she was hearing was very like the musical bleeping of R2D2's electronic voice, and it was being answered by the polite, BBC tones of the other robot character, C3PO. But as she listened, Tess realised that the sounds were not coming from downstairs but from one of the other bedrooms.

She looked across the room. Orla was breathing freely and there could be no more doubt that she was asleep. Tess slipped out of bed again and crept out on to the landing. A dim light was always left on there, in case any of the children woke in the night. The sound of the
Star Wars
robots was still going on, and it was quite clearly coming from the bedroom which Brian and Colm shared, beside the bathroom. Furtively, Tess put her ear against the door and listened.

The boys must have been playing a tape. First there was a flurry of R2D2 bleeps and blips, then C3PO said, ‘Oh, really, R2. We can't possibly do a thing like that!'

Another trill followed, like electronic birdsong, and C3PO replied again. ‘Not tonight, R2. It would be far too dangerous!'

Tess was tempted to knock and join the boys, but she refrained. Better to stick to her own plan, now that she finally had the freedom to do it.

With the relief of a prisoner being released, she Switched. Even as she became a rat and began to adjust to her surroundings, processing sounds and smells, her human mind was wondering how she would survive when she couldn't Switch any longer. Like stepping back into prison, it would be. For a life sentence.

She put it out of her mind and concentrated on the present. Her rat body was supple and strong. She went silently back into Orla's room and slithered through the hole where the radiator pipe emerged. Then she was running and sliding down through the walls of the house. When she was human, Tess always thought that she could remember how it felt, but it wasn't until she became a rat again that she knew she was wrong. No memory could capture the immediacy of ratness or how it felt to be so small and yet so strong; so vulnerable and so brave. Why would anyone choose to be human, she wondered, if they could be a rat instead?

The first room that Tess came to was the sitting-room. She didn't go in. It didn't look like a promising place for foraging. There was only one rat in there as far as she could see. He was quite elderly and was having serious trouble with half a packet of fruit gums which were sticking his teeth together. He was scraping angrily at his jowls with his paws but was having no success. Tess noticed that he was missing one of his teeth; a top one, at the front. She wondered whether it was a casualty of an earlier fruit gum battle, but decided not to embarrass him by asking. She turned and slipped away before he saw her.

In the hall-way she encountered one of the strangest rats she had ever met. She was scurrying rapidly down the stairs carrying a bread-crust that Colm must have dropped on his rambles, and as she passed Tess she flashed an unusual greeting. Tess was pretty expert at the visual language that rats used to communicate with each other, but she had never been greeted like this before. The image was of a huge gathering of rats with Tess in the centre of it, being welcomed with joy on all sides. It was more than unusual. It was grand, larger than life, almost poetic. Tess watched as the other rat squeezed through a tiny hole at the bottom of the first stair, then she turned towards the kitchen. But part of her mind was still on the peculiar message, and she had blundered into the middle of trouble before she realised her mistake.