The Unicorn Hunter (11 page)

Maddy had glared back at him, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. ‘Don't do this to me,' she whispered, her voice cracking.

‘It's for your own good,' said Granda. ‘Cry all you like, love, I'm still sending you to the city. I'm not having you sneak off to the mound behind my back. You might not find your way home this time.'

‘What if they don't give up?'

‘They will. Faeries are easily distracted. The unicorn will recover, this crisis will pass, our world will return to normal and the Tuatha will go back to fighting among themselves.'

‘They think I'm the Hound,' whispered Maddy.

‘You are NOT the Hound,' said Granda fiercely. ‘You don't want that, Maddy, believe me.' He looked toward the kitchen, where Granny was singing cheerfully. He and Maddy had been yelling at each other for ages and normally she would have stormed into the room by now, all five feet nothing of her, to spread a bit of shock and awe and make them SHUT UP AND GIVE HER HEAD PEACE! But thanks to the glamour, she was in her own little world.

‘You're right,' Granda had grunted. ‘Her being glamoured does have its advantages.' And he had sat down to the read the newspaper, leaving Maddy standing numb and hollow, her fists clenching and unclenching by her sides.

Maddy jerked awake in Granny's chair. The hollow feeling was back in her stomach, jostling for room with
the nausea. Being sent away was what Maddy had always secretly dreaded. She knew her grandparents were old and it was hard work looking after a child. They had probably thought they had done raising their family and could enjoy themselves a bit, before her parents' car had spun off an icy road in Donegal and left her orphaned. Granda had said it was only for a little while, but what if they decided it was easier to leave her at Fionnula's? She hated her aunt and she hated Danny and Roisin's three older brothers. Life there would be unbearable.

She got up and stretched in an effort to keep awake. The room was cold and she thought longingly of her warm, soft bed, but she walked to the window and peeked around the edge of the curtain at the silvering sky. A few small birds had woken early and sang sweet, bubbling songs that were full of summer. Crows huffed in sleepy, messy balls – it was too early for them to stir themselves and drown out the dawn chorus with their grating calls. Maddy waited until she saw the first yellow rays of the sun stretch chilled fingers across the village square and then crept quietly toward the kitchen.

The linoleum on the floor was slick and cold even through her thick socks. She stuffed her feet into the trainers she had carelessly tossed beside the back door, working them from side to side to force them in without undoing the laces. She covered the bottom bolt on the
back door with her free hand as she slid it open to disguise the sound of iron grinding on iron. She carried a kitchen chair over so she could reach the top bolt and hushed that with one hand as well. Next she felt under the china shepherdess on the kitchen shelf to find the backdoor key. She slid it gently into the gleaming brass lock and turned it slowly, steadying her wrist with her other hand – each noise the tumblers made as they turned over in slow motion cracked in the dark. A sheen of sweat coated her upper lip as the door swung free of its frame and she escaped into the cold morning air.

She tiptoed across the gravel in the garden, cringing at each crunch under her feet, convinced that at any second the back door would be flung open and a furious Granda would spot her sneaking out on her own. Or even worse, an irate Granny – the glamour had worn off by bedtime and she was back on form. She crept over to the dog's kennel and called softly to George. The elderly terrier wasn't impressed at being woken up and she practically had to drag him out, smelling to high heaven of dog, rumpled and warm where he had been lying in his blanket. Granda's hounds, Pedlar and Bewley, snored on, oblivious to the world outside their kennels. She snapped a red lead on to the collar around George's neck and opened the garden gate.

She picked George up and held him in her arms
until she had jogged quietly around the corner, past the huge B&B that sat next to her grandparents' house and out into the square. George shivered and looked up at her grumpily as she set off across the grass, before heaving a huge sigh and trotting after her dutifully. The grass was bleached with dew and her footprints left emerald wounds across its surface. Wisps of early-morning mist clung to the ground and drifted about like the last stragglers from a party. It looked very Celtic and romantic and Maddy was sure it was the sort of scene that would have tourists reaching for their cameras, but it reminded her of faeries and made her nervous.

She looked at the grass and flicked glances out of the corners of her eyes to see if she could catch any sneaky movements. Her hand went to her pocket and with the tip of one finger she eased the Velcro apart as quietly as she could and closed her fingers around the dull, rough iron knife. It was light and all faeries should be tucked up beneath the mound by now – but the faeries in Blarney were not behaving as they should.

A crow swooped overhead and cawed, making her jump. They were close to the wall on the opposite side of the square from her grandparents' house now, and just as Maddy put her hand on the piled stones to climb over, George peeled his lips back from his teeth in a rumbling
growl, the hair on his back and neck standing stiff with alarm.

There was a slight sound from the other side of the wall, just a few inches from where her hand rested. It sounded like the dull clink of glass and Maddy froze, her mouth drying with fear. George crept forward on his belly, his growl getting louder. There was a funny smell in the air and Maddy sniffed. It smelt like … oh, yuck, pee and sweat and dirty clothes.

A bearded head with a shock of dirty yellow hair popped over the wall. ‘
BANG, BANG!
' it shouted. Maddy squealed in fright and stumbled backwards, at the same time as George launched himself at the scruffy, dirty figure that was clutching the brown beer bottles it had stolen from the rubbish left out by the pub.

‘BAD BOY, GEORGE!' Maddy yelled as she dived for the little black and white terrier as he tried to climb the wall, his claws scrabbling furiously at the grey stone. The figure squealed and shrank away from the bristling terrier as Maddy wrapped her arms around his squirming body, the claws on his front paws raising ugly red marks on her hands as he struggled to get down.

Maddy grinned and shook her head when she saw who it was. ‘Bang, bang,' said the little man again. ‘You're dead.'

Bang Bang was notorious around the village. He
wore the same clothes winter and summer – greasy black pants, shiny at the knees with age, filthy trainers, a huge grey overcoat belted with a piece of rope and a scarf knotted up to his chin. He stank, because it seemed he never took anything off to wash it or himself. He lived in a cottage outside the village and shuffled around all day, picking up bits of rubbish and eating the food that the villagers gave him. At least, that's what Maddy assumed – she had never seen him grocery shopping. Everyone called him Bang Bang, because that was how he greeted people. He thought he was a cowboy, among other things.

Bang Bang stuck his tongue out at George, whose sharp barks were beginning to hurt Maddy's ears. ‘Nasty doggie,' said Bang Bang.

‘Sorry about him, Bang Bang, he's being a bit daft today,' said Maddy, clamping her hand around George's muzzle.

‘I've got a right to be here, you know,' said Bang Bang, glaring at her. ‘I'm doing the queen's business, clearing up all this mess.'

‘I know, I know,' said Maddy. ‘It's all right, Bang Bang. You gave me a bit of fright is all. I didn't know you were there.'

Bang Bang looked at her suspiciously and then his eyes cleared a little. He shuffled a bit closer, bottles
clanking, and his particular body odour wafted over Maddy in a big, curling wave thick enough to surf.

‘I got lots of things today,' he said, rattling the bottles in his arms and looking at them fondly. ‘I can share some, if you want.'

Maddy swallowed and breathed through her mouth as she took a step backwards, George's growls muffled by her hand. ‘No, you're all right, I don't want to take your stuff off you,' she said, smiling apologetically. ‘I need to get back now anyway and eat my breakfast. I've got school today.'

‘More for me then so,' said Bang Bang, jiggling his treasures. He turned away, blowing a raspberry at an outraged George before he walked off.

Maddy put the terrier on the wet grass and he looked up at her, tongue lolling from his mouth in a wide doggy smile.

‘Happy again, are you?' asked Maddy. ‘What on earth is wrong with you, you eejit of a dog?' George thumped his tail in response. Maddy sighed. ‘We'd better get home. You've probably woken half the square up.'

‘I could have heard that dog barking in Dublin!' yelled Granny as Maddy opened the front door. Maddy groaned as she saw both her grandparents were up and Granda was giving her the hairy eyeball, that stomach-clenching look that said,
I'll deal with you later
.

‘It wasn't really his fault. Bang Bang was in the square and you know the way he always sets the dogs off,' said Maddy.

‘I'm not blaming George, and do
not
you be blaming Bang Bang,' said Granny, as she put cereal and a bowl on the table for Maddy. Granda got up to open the back door and whistled. George shot through it and out to his kennel – he knew better than to stick around when Maddy was getting a tongue-lashing.

‘You shouldn't have been out on your own this early in the morning on a school day in the first place,' scolded Granny. ‘Instead of walking that fool of a dog,
you should have been getting ready. Now you're going to have to rush.'

Maddy poured milk over her cornflakes and began to spoon them into her mouth. ‘Yeah, but why is it that every dog in the village runs at him barking whenever they see him? It's horrible.'

‘Poor unfortunate,' sighed Granny as she settled into the chair opposite Maddy and began buttering some toast. ‘He was a lovely lad when he was younger – bright and cheerful and always a smile on him. But he turned funny around the age of twelve and he's never been right since. Broke his poor mother's heart, so it did.'

‘What's the matter with him?' asked Maddy.

‘Nobody knows,' said Granny. ‘His mother had him in and out of hospital, wore herself out going up and down to Dublin to see specialists with him, and not one of them could tell her what was wrong with him. But he seems happy enough in himself and he's managed to keep body and soul together since his mother died, God rest her soul.'

‘Still doesn't explain why all the dogs go mad when he's around though,' said Maddy.

‘Well, doctors say a brain that isn't well gives off different brainwaves than usual,' said Granny. ‘Animals are meant to be sensitive to brainwaves – they can often tell when someone is ill, like if they have a tumour.
Whatever is wrong with poor Bang Bang, they know something isn't right.'

Maddy chewed on her cornflakes and thought about it for a while.

‘Some of the things he comes out with though, they're a scandal,' said Granny, her mouth a thin line of disapproval.

‘Like what?' asked Maddy.

‘Well, I went up for Communion one day at Mass and there was Bang Bang sitting in the front pew with his great long legs stretched out in front of him, so I had to step over him to get to the altar. The priest was handing me the wafer and when he said, ‘Body of Christ,' Bang Bang leaned forward and said, ‘Gander poo!'

Maddy choked so hard on her cornflakes some of them wedged in her sinuses. She coughed and spluttered as she tried not to laugh. Granny fixed her with That Look over the top of her glasses. ‘Isn't it time you got ready for school?'

Maddy nodded and shovelled the last of her cereal into her mouth before heading off to her bedroom, avoiding Granda's glare. She changed quickly into her school uniform, checked she had everything she needed in her rucksack and went to the front door. ‘Myself and Roisin have to do some more studying after school today so I'll be home a bit later than usual,' she said.

‘You've no time. You need to be home before dark,' said Granda.

‘But—' began Maddy.

‘No buts. Come home straight after school, no messing on the way,' said Granda, flicking the morning paper open.

Granny looked at her and shook her head ever so slightly.
Do as you are told.

Maddy sighed and let herself out the front door. She zipped her jacket up tight against the sharp air and began the ten-minute walk to school. Blarney had woken up and was bustling about. People were doing a bit of early-morning shopping in the Co-op while sales assistants hid their yawns. Cars whizzed past, taking people into Cork for work or dropping children at school, brushing the crumbs of breakfast eaten on the run from their uniforms. She crossed the bridge and the river that ran beneath her feet was swollen with autumn rain, its voice deeper and more self-important than usual as it tumbled over its rocky bed. A lorry thundered past, the slipstream created by its grimy metal sides puffing against her hair. Maddy took a deep breath. She loved this time of year. The trees were turning every shade of red and gold before their leaves dropped and they went into a deep sleep. The whole world seemed to burn with their last surge of sap and the air was as crisp as an apple.
The warmth from the sun was weak but the light was molten yellow. The earth would turn and Maddy could hope things would be better next year, as she seemed to do every year since her parents had died. The wool of her school tights prickled against her skin, as the air was still just a little too warm to justify wearing them. Maddy longed to scratch at her thighs, but Granny would have a fit if she was seen doing something like that in public.