The Last of the High Kings (14 page)

She didn't even try to look for him. She knew that he would find her, and he did, about halfway between the top meadow of the farm and the stony steps. He lengthened himself and walked beside her to a rocky outcrop where they both would find comfortable seats.

“I'm so pleased you came,” he said. “I was afraid you wouldn't ever come back and see me.”

Jenny was breathing hard, more from fear than from the exertion of the climb. She waited until the púka had settled himself on a slab of limestone. Then she leaned against a boulder a few paces away from him.

“I heard you wanted to see me,” she said. “What was it about?”

“Why should it have been about anything?” he
said. “I used to enjoy our lessons and our little chats. I missed you, that was all.”

“I didn't think anybody cared about me,” said Jenny. “Not since I found out why I'm here. You knew all along, didn't you?”

The púka tried to make a sympathetic face, but it looked pretty stupid on a goat. It was almost dark by now, but the púka's shaggy coat was so white and clean that she had no trouble seeing him.

“People have let you down badly, haven't they, Jenny?” he said.

Jenny nodded.

“It's no surprise to me.” He went on. “You don't belong with them, and you never did. They let everyone down, that lot, even one another.”

Jenny nodded again. “They're a bit of a disaster,” she said.

“That's putting it mildly,” said the púka. “There never was a race of creatures like them.” His eyes took on a dreamy expression. “Oh, this used to be such a beautiful place, Jenny. I wish you had seen it in the old days. Healthy forests and fresh air. No cities, no cars, no airplanes, no filth.”

“It must have been lovely,” said Jenny.

“It was,” said the púka. “Of all the worlds, this one
was the most glorious. Our finest creation and our favorite. But look at it now. Look at the mess they've made of it.”

Jenny looked at it, or at least she looked at the tiny bit of it that she could see in the darkness.

“But you aren't one of them.” He went on. “You know that now, so we can talk more freely. You are more like me than like them. You come from a race of gods.”

“Am I a god?” said Jenny.

“A godling perhaps. Do you have any powers?”

“I don't know,” said Jenny. “I can't make people dizzy anyway.”

“Never mind,” said the púka. “It might come to you later. But there is another kind of power that I know you have.”

“Really?” said Jenny. “What's that?”

The púka gave a great sigh and said, “You were right, Jenny. There is a reason that I wanted to talk to you. The ruination of this world has to stop, and you may be the only one who can stop it.”

“Me?” said Jenny. “How?”

“I want you to use your influence with the ghost,” said the púka. “I want you to persuade him to leave.”

Hazel stood in the middle of the kitchen, assessing the ruins of the family reunion. Her mother had gone up to bed in a flood of tears. Her father was sitting at the table with his head in his hands and hadn't moved for twenty minutes. Donal, clearly pleased with himself for having caused it all, was playing with his gamepod in the armchair beside the stove.

“Where's Jenny?” As she said it, Hazel's mind raced back over the whole conversation, and she saw how it must have appeared from Jenny's point of view. Everyone's focus had been on the baby and its eventual return to the family. No one had given a moment's consideration to Jenny's feelings.

She checked in the sitting room and the bedrooms, then went out into the yard and called. In the still
evening air her voice carried easily across the half mile or so that lay between the house and the place where Jenny and the púka were talking. Both of them ignored it.

“What will happen to the ploddies if I get rid of the ghost and you get the hatchet back?” Jenny was saying.

The púka could barely conceal a gleeful grin. “Their number will be up at last,” he said. “They'll hardly know what hit them.”

“What, all of them?”

“Well, not all of them exactly. We would want to keep a few of them around to graft the apple trees and cultivate root vegetables.” He paused for a moment and licked his chops with a long pink tongue. “But there would have to be a serious reduction in their numbers before this world got back into balance again.” He waited, and when Jenny said nothing, he went on. “Is there someone in particular you'd like us to spare?”

“I think so,” said Jenny. “I know the Liddys aren't perfect, but they're the only family I've ever known.”

“Right,” said the púka. “We'll leave the Liddys alone.”

“Including all the grandparents and Marian in Cork and her husband, Danny.”

“That can be arranged,” said the púka.

“And all the people in my school,” said Jenny.

“Okay.”

“Actually,” said Jenny, “would you mind sparing everyone in Kinvara? It's not a very big place.”

“I think we could manage that,” said the púka. “They would probably spread out a bit after a while. Is that all?”

“And Maureen, the archaeologist who brought me a cup of coffee on the beacon,” said Jenny. “But I don't know where she lives.”

“We'll find her,” said the púka, “and we'll spare her. I have a mental note of all that.”

“What will you do to the other people then?” said Jenny. “Everybody else?”

“Well,” said the púka, “the terms of the peace agreement made no mention of undercover warfare, so we have been using that all along. Floods, hurricanes, famines, diseases, that kind of thing. But once the hatchet is out from under that slag heap we can go back to direct action.” He smiled at Jenny. “We'll be able to return to our original shapes.”

Jenny remembered the images of the big lizardy things the ghost had shown her: the scales, the horns, the claws.

“Which are?” she said.

The púka smiled again, and this time a glint of fiery red light showed in his throat. She saw fangs in the goat mouth. She knew.

“Did you never wonder why it is that human beings have no predator?” he said. “They did have once, but only their old stories remember us now. When we are free to do battle again, they will remember our power. One of us on the rampage can make short work of a little town like Ennis. Three of us could flatten Dublin inside a day.”

“But not the Dublin grandparents,” said Jenny, battling to keep her nerve. “You won't flatten them.”

“Not the Dublin grandparents,” said the púka patiently. “They're on my list.”

For a long time Jenny said nothing. The púka waited until finally his patience ran out. “So what do you think?” he said.

“I think I would be very scared of your original shape,” said Jenny.

“But it won't be turned against you.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“So what do you think?” said the púka. “About having a chat with the ghost?”

J.J. stumbled uselessly around the hillside for half an hour but drew the line at entering the woods. He called out a couple more times from the edge; but it was dark enough out in the open, and who knew what might be waiting for him in there? In any case, it was possible that he had just missed Jenny. There was every chance that she had made her own way home by now.

She hadn't, though. Aisling had gotten up again and had lit the stove in anticipation of a long night. Hazel, having done all she could to try to find Jenny, was in the armchair, busily texting friends. Donal was finishing off the apple crumble.

“We could phone the police,” said Aisling, “if I hadn't so cleverly cried wolf all summer.”

“I don't see what the police could do anyway,” said
J.J. “No one's going to find her in the dark.”

“We ought to have a dog,” said Hazel. “If we had a dog, it would find her.”

Donal put the empty pie dish in the sink and sucked the spoon. “I don't know what all the fuss is about,” he said. “Jenny is a fairy, isn't she? She's perfectly capable of looking after herself.”

Which was, J.J. had to admit, the most sensible thing anybody had said all evening. No one knew the mountainside as well as Jenny did, and if she met the púka up there, well, wasn't that exactly what J.J. wanted?

 

“I tell you what,” said Jenny. “I'll make a deal with you.”

The púka looked startled, but he quickly regained his composure and said, “Go on. I'm listening.”

“Well,” said Jenny, “the thing is, there's been this stupid mix-up over a baby in Tír na n'Óg. My other half. The one I was swapped for.”

“What kind of mix-up?”

“Her mother expected her to still be a baby when we changed back, but they got it wrong. She won't be. She'll be the same age as me, won't she? The same age she would be if she had stayed here?”

“She will,” said the púka. “That's the way I understand it anyway.”

“So, I know you made some wood get older for J.J. Could you fix it so that the baby doesn't get older when she comes out of Tír na n'Óg?”

“Ooh,” said the púka. “Tall order.” He scratched an ear with his long, elegant fingers and creased his hairy brow. He uncrossed his legs and crossed them again with the under one over. He turned his lizard eyes up to the dark sky and back down to his white lap. While he thought, night creatures rustled along the forest floor and in the trees above them.

“Make someone younger,” he said thoughtfully.

“Not make her younger,” said Jenny. “Just stop her getting older.”

“Hmm,” said the púka, and after a moment or two he said, “Hmm,” again. Then he said, “Do you know, I think it can be done. In fact she probably wouldn't have survived coming back in the normal way. Increasing your size and body weight instantly by something of the order of two thousand percent is almost certain to be fatal. But if we do it my way, we can keep her small and keep her alive. It will involve taking her through a series of worlds, including one where she will be temporarily turned into a gas and
one in which time goes backward, but it will work, I'm certain of that.”

“Excellent!” said Jenny. “And can you do a straight swap? Bring her back from Tír na n'Óg as soon as the ghost is gone?”

The púka considered this. “I can probably contrive a causative link between the two events, yes.”

“And can you have her just appear? In my bedroom, say?”

“No, Jenny,” said the púka without hesitation. “That would be magic, and magic is beyond me. I am less restricted than most creatures, but I'm still bound by the laws of nature, and so is the baby. But I could probably arrange to have her delivered to your doorstep.”

“That'll do,” said Jenny. “Is it a deal then? I persuade the boy ghost to leave the beacon and you get the baby home?”

“It's a deal,” said the púka.

“And you'll spare the Liddys, and all the grandparents, and Marian and Danny?”

“I'll spare every last one of them.”

“And everyone in Kinvara?”

“And everyone in Kinvara.”

“And Maureen, the archaeologist who brought me
a cup of coffee on the beacon?”

“And Maureen, the archaeologist who brought you a cup of coffee on the beacon. On my honor.”

The púka's honor was enough for Jenny, and she stretched out her hand. The púka took it in his, and the agreement was sealed.

Jenny left the púka in the woods and walked up the hillside. The sky was cloudy, and the half-moon appeared only occasionally, but there was still enough light for her to see where she was going. She had her own particular way of getting up to the beacon, following paths made by the wild goats and skirting around the stony steps to avoid the steepest climbs. The night was cool and damp and not at all frightening. It held a rich assortment of smells of the sort you never got in daylight. She saw a fox and two badgers, all very close, none of them in the least bit afraid of her. Darkness was their territory.

The ghost too seemed stronger in the night. Although she still couldn't see him with the front part of her eyes, his form in her peripheral vision was well
defined and consistent. He was surprised to see her there but very pleased. It had been many days since she had paid him a visit, and ghost days are no shorter than ploddy ones.

Jenny sat on her favorite stone and watched clouds drifting across the one-eyed moon. For a long time she thought about the púka and its fighting form, and she wondered whether she really had the courage to go through with the deal. She had wronged the boy ghost by believing him to be deluded, and she wanted to put it right by delivering him from his misery and loneliness. And the strange thing was that all along, without her ever knowing it, the púka had been providing her with the means of doing it.

She followed her thoughts in one direction and another. They always arrived back at the same place. She had made an agreement with the púka, and whatever else he might be, the púka was honorable. Of that she was certain. And since she was a godling, she must be honorable too. She would keep her end of the bargain to the letter and the word.

She took a swig of dark mountain air and began to talk to the ghost.

 

For half the summer's night they talked about the world as the boy had known it and the world as it was now. They talked about people past and people present, about how they lived then and how they lived now, about what their needs had been then and what they had become. They talked about where need ended and where greed began. Jenny told the ghost what she had learned from reading the winds, though she didn't tell him how she had learned it. She told him about the things he couldn't see: the massive cities drinking energy night and day; the planes taking off and returning like bees around a hive; the people who had forgotten how to walk because they drove everywhere in cars. She told him about the melting ice caps and the hole in the ozone layer and the species that were becoming extinct before they had even been discovered and given names. And as she talked, he questioned her, and she sensed the first fault lines beginning to appear in the ghost's conviction. In all his twelve years as a boy and his thousands of years as a ghost he had never doubted the absolute right of human beings to use the earth in whatever way they pleased. But then, in all those thousands of years, he had never heard anything like the things that Jenny was telling him now.

She chose her words and her topics carefully. She knew that if she pushed too hard and too fast, it might have the opposite effect to what she intended. It was very important that she didn't alienate the ghost and lose his trust. So she sweetened the bitter pill from time to time by talking about the good things in human nature: about friendship and generosity and the spirit of cooperation. They talked about people who chose to go against the trend and live simple lives and people who devoted their time to helping others. They talked about poetry and music, which the gods loved as much as people did and which ghosts loved too.

By the time Jenny got up to leave she was fairly sure that she had got the tone just right. The ghost wasn't going anywhere just yet, but the total conviction that had kept him attached to the earth for all those thousands of years had been seriously undermined. He had glimpsed the possibility of escape, and although he wasn't about to take it just yet, Jenny was as sure as she could be that he would be ready to go when, or if, the rest of her plan fell into place.

 

So she was full of high spirits when she got back to the house in the early hours of the morning and not
at all prepared for the reception that was awaiting her. Gushing with relief, J.J. and Aisling took turns in hugging her tight, and kissing her, and telling her how worried they had been.

“I'm a godling,” she said to them sternly. “I'm well able to look after myself.”

But she couldn't help feeling just a little bit fond of them. She was glad that she'd made the púka promise to spare them. If her plan worked properly, it wouldn't be necessary, but there was no harm in having a safeguard built in, just in case.

“Um, Jenny?” said J.J. as they all were heading up to bed.

“Yes?”

“I was just wondering. Did you happen to meet the púka tonight?”

“Yep,” said Jenny. J.J. grinned with delight, but Jenny wondered whether his grin would be so wide if he had heard what she and the púka had agreed.

 

The púka, all too well aware of her credentials, had not entirely trusted Jenny when they made their deal. The fairy folk were notorious for their trickery, and even a juvenile might prove untrustworthy. But when
he visited the mountaintop at dawn, he was very well pleased with what he found. The ghost was still there, but his power had waned. His area of influence had receded dramatically, and the púka was able to get a lot closer to the beacon than before. With enormous satisfaction he grazed in grassy hollows where he hadn't set foot for more than three thousand years.