The Last of the High Kings (15 page)

Jenny slept until eight o'clock the next morning; that was unprecedented. Aisling and J.J. were not so lucky. Aidan woke at his usual time of seven o'clock, and they both got up with him, hoping to catch Jenny before she went out.

By the time they finished their breakfast everyone was up except for Hazel, who rarely emerged before lunchtime. J.J. persuaded Donal to take Aidan for a walk so that he and Aisling could have some time with Jenny on her own.

“We wanted to have a bit of a chat about things,” said J.J.

“What things?” said Jenny.

“Well, about everything. About you being, er, adopted and everything. Now that you know.”

Jenny was quite relieved that the chat wasn't going to be about the púka and the ghosts. That was something she wanted to keep to herself.

“We ought to have talked things over with you long before this,” said Aisling, “instead of just springing it on you last week.”

“I shouldn't have tried to take you back to Tír na n'Óg,” said J.J. “That was a mistake.”

Jenny shrugged and looked out of the window. “I don't mind going there,” she said.

“But we don't want you to, Jen,” said Aisling. “We want you to stay here with us.”

“Why?”

“Because we'd miss you if you weren't here. We don't want you to go to Tír na n'Óg until you're good and ready.”

“I'm good and ready now,” said Jenny. “Nearly.” She was intrigued by Tír na n'Óg now that she had learned a bit more about it. She wished she had taken the opportunity to get to know Aengus Óg that day instead of running away from him.

“Thing is,” said J.J., “you're not really ready to go back there yet.”

“Then why did you try to take me?”

“I was annoyed with Aengus because he hadn't
given me the wood for my fiddles. I wasn't thinking straight.”

“Neither of us was,” said Aisling. “We want you to understand that you're part of our family and you'll stay part of it, just like the others, until you're grown up and ready to leave home.”

“I'm ready to leave home now,” said Jenny. “Nearly.”

“Well, we don't agree,” said J.J. “We don't think you're big enough.”

“Why do I have to be big?”

“Because none of the changelings go back to Tír na n'Óg until they're grown up. Everyone there is an adult.”

“Oh,” said Jenny, looking out of the window again. The hillside was bright with late-summer sunshine, and it was beckoning. “Can I go out now?”

“Yes, you can, Jen,” said Aisling. “But listen. Will you forgive us for behaving so stupidly?”

“Yes, I will,” said Jenny. “I already have.”

“And will you do one more thing?” said J.J.

“What?” said Jenny.

“Will you promise not to go out at night again?”

Jenny thought about this and remembered her godling status and her newly acquired sense of honor.

She couldn't lie. So she said quite calmly, “No. I like going out at night.”

 

Donal took Aidan all the way to Mikey's house, but they didn't stay long. Aidan tried to pull Belle's ears off, and when that didn't work, he started slamming the poker into the slumbering fire, sending up powdery explosions of sparks and pinkish gray ash.

“I won't bring him again,” said Donal, hauling his protesting brother toward the front door.

“Don't mind him,” said Mikey. “He's only young. He'll learn. But come again, you, tomorrow morning. I want you for something.”

“Okay,” said Donal. “Will I bring the accordion?”

“Best leave it at home this time,” said Mikey. “But come good and early, will you?”

J.J. met them at the bottom of the drive, where he was clearing years of sediment out of the cattle grid. It was effectively useless, but they would need it to be working when the cattle arrived the next day.

“How is Mikey?” he asked Donal.

“He's good,” said Donal. “He was asking for you.”

“I must call down to him one of these days,” said J.J. “I must bring the fiddle and play him a few tunes.”

“You should definitely go,” said Donal. “But I don't think he's so interested in tunes anymore.”

“No?” said J.J.

“No,” said Donal. “He seems to have something else on his mind.”

Jenny sat on the hillside above the farm and watched the traffic moving along the New Line. There wasn't very much of it. A couple of cars, then a gap, then a tractor and trailer, then another long gap, then another couple of cars. Sometimes as much as five minutes would go by with nothing moving in either direction. She tried to guess what would come next, but she never got it right.

A hare ambled past, seeming not to notice her. Soon afterward the white goat appeared and came over to sit beside her.

“Well done, little Jenny,” he said.

It was too exposed for the púka to change shape, and he never spoke so clearly when he was entirely goat. Jenny supposed it must be difficult to make the
sounds come out right with such a long jaw.

“Well done for what?” she said.

“For talking to the ghost,” said the púka. “You're definitely getting somewhere.”

“It wasn't so hard,” said Jenny.

“How much longer will it take, do you think?”

Jenny shrugged. “Slowly slowly catchee monkey.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Can't rush these things,” said Jenny. “That ghost has been there for a long, long time.” She pulled up a stalk of grass and chewed the sweet pulp at its base. “Have you sorted something out about the baby?”

“I have,” said the púka. “I have organized an envoy to bring her back the instant the ghost lets go.”

“Wonderful,” said Jenny. “So everything's on track.”

“Will it be days?” said the púka. “Weeks? Months?”

“One of those or all of them,” said Jenny nonchalantly. “There's no point in nagging me.”

The púka accepted this without a word. He got up and shook himself, then wandered back toward the woods.

Jenny let out a long breath. She wasn't anywhere
near as calm as she had let on. Her plan depended on one essential thing over which she had no control. All she could do now was wait and hope that it would happen.

Donal woke to the sound of his mother trying to get Hazel out of bed. He lay listening for a moment or two, then jumped up and got dressed.

He knew why Hazel had to get up. Aisling and J.J. both were going to the mart in Ennistymon to look at cattle and possibly to buy some. Hazel had promised to mind Aidan for the day, but she had been out clubbing the night before and had undoubtedly got back very late. It meant that Donal had to make himself scarce as soon as he could because there was a very strong chance that he would be dragged in to deputize until Hazel got up.

In the kitchen J.J. was buttering toast, and Aidan, who was always at his most cooperative in the mornings, was carrying a carton of milk from the fridge to
the table. Before J.J. even registered that he was there, Donal collected two slices of toast and his hazel stick and slipped out through the back door. He ate the toast as he walked down the drive in the weak morning sunshine. It was only seven o'clock.

Well, Mikey had told him to come early.

 

Jenny was already up on her perch on the hillside. She had been up there when the garbage truck passed on its way from Carron to Kinvara and when the first commuter traffic came up in the other direction and turned down the New Line toward Ennis.

So far the púka hadn't made an appearance, and Jenny strongly suspected that he wouldn't since she had scolded him for nagging. He was well capable of being patient. He had waited for three thousand years, after all, so what difference would a few more days make here or there? As for herself, though, a few days seemed like a lifetime.

She stifled a yawn and watched a big white van speeding along the New Line from the Ballyvaughan direction. The next one, she decided, would be a blue four-by-four heading toward Kinvara. It was a red hatchback, heading toward Carron.

After another half hour and another forty-two cars
and vans, Jenny walked up to the beacon to see how the ghost was getting on. He was pleased to see her but was clearly depressed. She was very careful not to talk about anything gloomy, and by the time she left he seemed a bit more cheerful, and Jenny was glad of that.

As she walked back down the mountainside, she mused on her newfound ability to understand what other people were feeling. In some ways she liked it—it added a whole new dimension to life and to her relationships with others—but in another way it was a dreadful inconvenience. It was sympathy for the ghost and sympathy for Aisling that had led her to devise this plan. And while it was very exciting, it was dangerous as well, and there were moments when she wondered whether she hadn't bitten off more than she could chew, godling or no godling. If it went pear-shaped, she could be in all kinds of trouble when she got back home.

 

They were halfway to Ennistymon when Aisling said: “We really should have brought someone with us who knows something about cattle. We'll probably end up buying something with false teeth or asthma.”

“Nonsense,” said J.J. “I was born and bred a farmer. Don't forget that.”

“But you kept goats, J.J. Not cattle. There are differences, you know.”

“Not significant ones. A healthy beast is a healthy beast, no matter what size it is.”

“All the same,” said Aisling, “I was just thinking how nice it would have been if we could have brought Mikey. He would have enjoyed it too.”

“God, he would,” said J.J. “And no better man to cast an eye over cattle.”

They fell silent for a while, each of them thinking about Mikey. “I wonder, is it too late to go back and get him?” said J.J.

“It is a bit,” said Aisling. “We couldn't just expect him to drop everything and come with us. But we don't have to buy anything today. We can just look. Bring Mikey with us next time.”

“Bit of a waste of time borrowing the trailer then, wasn't it?” said J.J.

 

In any event they would have been wasting their time if they had gone back for Mikey. He wasn't there. As Jenny came down from the beacon, she spotted him heading toward her with Donal at his side. They had already crossed the New Line and were making their way over the pastureland that lay
outside the boundaries of the Liddy farm, on the Ballyvaughan side. They hadn't yet reached the steep part of the incline, but even so, the old man was making heavy weather of it, taking a few small steps at a time and leaning hard on his stick.

Jenny looked around, made a quick assessment of the situation, then went down to help them.

 

Donal tried to think of things to say to Mikey as they made their slow way up the hillside. He had already gone through every variation of “this is not a good idea” that he could dream up, but Mikey had not responded to any of them. He had no shortage of time in which to reply; but he did have a severe shortage of breath, and he wasn't prepared to waste any of it on arguments.

Instead he ploughed on doggedly, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other and doing his best not to look up too often in case the prospect of the climb ahead robbed him of his resolve.

“Mum and Dad have gone to Ennistymon,” said Donal.

Mikey nodded but said nothing.

“To buy cattle.” Donal went on.

Mikey stopped. He leaned on his stick and
breathed hard for a few minutes. Donal saw the high color in his face and wondered again how to stop this mad enterprise.

“That's the best news I heard in fifteen years,” said Mikey at last. “A farmer without stock is like a donkey with no legs. Going nowhere fast. I never thought I'd see the day when the Liddys stopped farming, and I'm glad I lived to see them come to their senses. It'll fall to you, of course, when J.J.'s over the hill.”

“It might not,” said Donal. “Hazel might take over.”

“That girl isn't a farmer and nor is Jenny. But you are, Donal. It was written all over you from the day you were born. I never doubted it for a minute.”

“I thought I might be a musician,” said Donal. “Like Dad.”

“And so you will be,” said Mikey. “But you can be a farmer as well.”

He looked up at the mountainside, and Donal caught a momentary expression of despair in his milky blue eyes. Then it was gone. He planted his hazel rod firmly and started forward again.

 

There was a stone wall that ran across the top of the meadow and separated it from the wilder, stonier
mountainside above. Jenny reached that wall before Mikey and Donal did, and it was immediately obvious to her that the old man would never be able to climb over it. So, instead of getting over and going on to meet them, Jenny stayed where she was and, carefully and methodically, knocked down a two-meter length of it. By the time the others reached her there was a clear gap without a single loose stone to impede their progress. Mikey gave Jenny a lopsided grin and heaved himself painfully through it.

“Why did you do that?” Donal growled at her under his breath. “If he couldn't get over, we might have been able to stop him!”

“Why would you want to stop him?” said Jenny. “Why are you helping him if you don't want him to go?”

“Because I don't want him to be on his own.”

“Well, he isn't. You can go back now if you want.”

Donal shook his head and went back to Mikey's side. The ground was getting steeper and rougher, and the old man was going to need all the help he could get.