The Unicorn Hunter (15 page)

She woke with a rumbling stomach to a dark
and sleeping house. The clock ticked away on the mantelpiece in the living room and she could hear deep, even breathing as Danny's chest rose and fell. Yawning wide enough to make her jaw pop, she staggered over to the bedroom door and peered around it blearily. Granda was asleep on the sofa, snoring slightly through a half-open mouth. Maddy slipped through the door and then went to listen outside her grandparents' bedroom. She could hear two sleepers breathing in there, so Roisin must be sharing Granny's bed.

She tiptoed to the kitchen as her stomach complained loudly and raided the cupboards. She made herself a sandwich and wolfed it down as she roved around the kitchen, spilling crumbs on Granny's spotless lino. She shovelled in some chocolate biscuits and drank milk straight out of the carton while she stood in the light of the fridge. She shivered in the cold air and glanced at the darkness pressed so lovingly against the kitchen window. She could see herself and the room reflected back by the black like a perfect mirror image, apart from a square of light thrown down on the garden lawn. As she gazed at it, half asleep, she spotted a quick movement just on the edge of the square, a flicker that soon disappeared into the border of black.

Maddy narrowed her eyes and then she felt that all too familiar prickling sensation on the back of
her neck. The food she had just eaten churned in her stomach as it clenched. She swallowed hard and crept to the light switch, flicking it off to plunge the room into darkness. She crouched down, close to the floor, her heart hammering against her ribs, and tried to keep her breathing even and quiet. She waited for a few moments and then there was another fast flicker against the window, a flash of a twisted and ugly face. She bit her lip to stifle a scream. Then she crawled on all fours to the kitchen worktop, lifted her arm over her head and felt along its cool surface for the wooden block where Granny kept her kitchen knives. She gripped the handle of one and eased it out before gently pulling back the bolts on the back door.

The gravel on the garden path crunched beneath her stockinged feet, the stones grinding against the wool of her tights. There was another flurry of movement, darting for the garden wall, a soft grey shadow.

‘I know you're there,' Maddy called softly, trying not to wake anyone. ‘I'm getting pretty good at spotting when any of you lot are around. So you might as well show yourself.'

The air went still and quiet. If Maddy strained her eyes she could see that little smudge of grey against the bluer, velvety black of the night. Whatever it was, it was either taking a long time to think about what she had
said or getting ready to attack. Maddy held the kitchen knife out in front of her and shifted her weight slightly so that she was ready to bolt back through the door. Her breath steamed faintly in the early autumn air and she tensed her body for a blow.

And then the garden breathed out again as the grey shadow uncoiled itself and a faerie no bigger than an eight-year-old child shuffled into the moonlight. Maddy knew it was rude to stare, never mind gasp with horror, but it really was the ugliest little creature and one of the most frightening faeries she had ever seen.

It was an old hag that scuffed her bare feet across the gravel to stand in front of Maddy. Her skin was as grey as the rags she clutched about herself, and her wrinkled scalp showed through the thin white hair that trailed in limp hanks to the small of her back. The nails on her hands and feet were long and black and her mouth sunken. But her black eyes were soft and kind and crinkled with laughter lines at the corners. If it hadn't been for her eyes, Maddy probably would have run back into the kitchen and slammed the door.

Instead, she unglued her tongue from the roof of her mouth, where it had almost dried fast, and said, ‘You're a banshee, aren't you?' The little faerie woman ducked her head shyly and nodded. Maddy stared at her stupidly,
one thought running around her head like a hamster on a wheel.

‘Am I dying?'

The banshee giggled, showing one tooth hanging on for dear life in her mouth. ‘No, Feral Child,' she said, her voice as beautiful as her body was ugly. ‘I came to see the new Hound. It's the blood that calls me.'

‘I wish you lot would stop going on about blood,' said Maddy. ‘It's horrible. Especially when it's mine you're talking about!'

The banshee flinched as if she had been slapped and lowered her head. ‘Sorry,' she said in a small voice.

Maddy winced. The little faerie made her feel as if she was bullying a pensioner. Which she probably was. The banshee shivered in the cold wind. ‘Would you like to come in?' asked Maddy. She had no idea why she said it; it just felt like the right thing to do.

The faerie looked up quickly, the black eyes eager, and she shuffled at warp speed past Maddy and into the kitchen, rolling from side to side as if one leg hurt her. Maddy was going to take the horseshoe off the door in case the iron repelled the faerie, but the banshee was past her and nosing around the kitchen before she could reach for it, the smell of damp earth wafting off her as she blinked in the electric light that came on when Maddy flicked the switch.

‘The iron doesn't bother you then?' asked Maddy, as she closed the back door quietly.

The banshee shook her head. ‘I'm a solitary faerie, and one of the types who spends more time with mortals than with faeries,' said the little woman. ‘After a while we get more and more like you and some things stop bothering us.' She pulled a face. ‘Although I wouldn't like to actually
touch
iron, of course.'

‘Of course,' said Maddy. She watched the little faerie look around the room, her nose snuffling. There was a tiny part of Maddy's brain, a small but rational voice, telling her this wasn't a good idea, that she should probably ask the faerie to leave and hope she would be reasonable about it, but the situation was so bizarre Maddy decided to ignore it. Besides, the reckless, impulsive part of her brain argued, Granda was asleep next door, and if the banshee turned aggressive, Maddy could just yell for help.

‘Would you like something to eat?' asked Maddy. From the look of the faerie, it had been a couple of centuries since she had a decent meal.

‘Do you have any Cheese & Onion Taytos?' asked the faerie.

‘Taytos?' repeated Maddy. ‘As in, the crisps?' The banshee nodded, her face hopeful. ‘Yeah, we always have a bag around somewhere.'

Maddy had a root around in a cupboard and found a family bag Granny always kept for when Maddy felt hungry. Granny had a far more lax approach to sweets and crisps than Maddy's parents would have approved of, for which Maddy was truly grateful. She turned with the crisps in her hand to see the little banshee wriggling like a puppy in excitement, her gnarled hands reaching for the packet. Maddy held them out and sat down in a kitchen chair to watch the faerie lower her head to the bag and shovel the crisps into her mouth with fingers tipped with long black nails. Her table manners left a lot to be desired.

‘So you're a solitary faerie then? What does that mean?' Maddy asked.

‘I don't owe allegiance to any court,' said the banshee between mouthfuls. ‘It's the blood that calls me and the blood I follow, so I wouldn't be able to offer complete obedience to any monarch. So my kind is left alone. We can visit any court we like, but no one tries to make us stay.'

‘You keep talking about blood,' said Maddy. ‘Do you smell it or something? Why does it mean so much to you?'

‘It's not a smell,' said the banshee scornfully, as she crunched gummily with her mouth open. ‘It's like a song, an irresistible lure that calls to us wherever we are. And
the lure is never so strong as when the blood is failing and the body dying. Then it's a light that shines out like a beacon. That's why we follow the blood wherever it goes, even when it leaves these shores. It can go as far as Australia and America. We always follow the blood and we sing when it passes.'

‘Why?'

The faerie shrugged her shoulders. ‘It's what we do, what we've always done. We are one of the last gifts that the Tuatha gave mortals.'

‘A gift?! Screeching and wailing until someone dies out of pure stress?' asked Maddy.

The faerie looked up at her with a hurt expression. ‘That's NOT what we do!'

‘Sorry,' said Maddy, when she realized how hurt the faerie woman was. ‘How would you describe it then?'

‘The Tuatha created my kind and gave them to the families of heroes,' said the banshee, lifting her head proudly. ‘So not only did we mourn and give a hero a proper funeral when they died but we mourn their children and their children's children, until the hero's line dies out and we fade away. We are a sign of respect from the Tuatha – our wailing lets the world know a mortal of greatness or one descended from greatness, beloved of the Fair Folk, has died. Their
passing never goes unnoticed, and a hero is
never
forgotten.'

‘I still don't get it,' said Maddy.

The banshee sighed. ‘Have you ever been to a funeral when no one turns up to mourn the departed?' she asked.

‘I really don't hang out at that many funerals,' said Maddy.

‘Trust me, it's grim,' said the banshee.

‘So are you my family's banshee?' Maddy asked. The little faerie nodded while inspecting the creases of the crisp packet for stray crumbs. ‘Did you mourn for my mother?' Maddy asked quietly.

The banshee went still and threw a quick look at Maddy, her eyes filling with tears. She nodded, crumpling the crisp packet in her hand.

‘What …?' Maddy swallowed the hard lump in her throat. ‘Was she …?'

‘She was still breathing when I got to the car, but her eyes were far away,' said the banshee softly. ‘Your father died instantly, but I was there for her. She wasn't alone at the end.'

Maddy bent forward, hot tears pouring silently down her face as she cupped her eyes with her palms. ‘I held her hand,' continued the banshee. ‘I stroked it and I crooned to her until the light died in her eyes. She wasn't
frightened,
a chuisle,
my darling, not one little bit. She didn't see this world at all at the end, she didn't know what had happened. She was looking at something I couldn't see, and then she died as easily as sleeping. It was a good death.'

The banshee bent down and squeezed Maddy's arm. ‘Then I keened for her,' she said fiercely. ‘The whole country heard me mourn your mother.'

Maddy looked up at her and nodded, wiping tears and snot away with the back of her hand.

‘I don't want to be the Hound,' she whispered.

‘And yet you are,' said the banshee kindly, patting Maddy's hand. ‘Your blood sings with the joy of being the Hound, it calls out to every faerie close by. Tír na nÓg trembles from its song!'

‘I don't believe in fate or destiny,' said Maddy.

‘Child, you can refuse to believe in a runaway horse, but it will still knock you down and trample you if you stand in its way,' said the faerie.

‘So you're saying I have to go and find this unicorn hunter?'

‘How can you not? We stand on the brink of war and famine. Countless lives will be lost and still more souls will live and suffer at the end of days. All you and I love, in this world and in among faerie kind, will be no more. You could stand aside, let this be another's task –' the
banshee cocked her head and smiled – ‘but I don't think it's in you to do that. If it was, you could never be the Hound.'

‘Meabh said the Hound is nothing more than an empty title, that it doesn't mean anything,' said Maddy.

The little banshee wrinkled her nose with contempt, which did nothing to improve her looks. ‘She would, the devious auld witch!'

‘Is she right?'

‘She is and she isn't,' said the banshee. ‘It's true it's just a title. But it is bestowed only on the Sighted that are the strongest and the bravest, and it changes them.'

‘How can it do that?' asked Maddy.

‘Kings are flesh and blood and no different than the men they rule,' said the banshee. ‘But call a man a king and he walks taller, feels stronger, and he no longer tries to act like a man; he strives to behave like a king. It's the same when you call one of the Sighted a Hound. They grow into the title and they are stronger for it – they become real heroes. That's what Meabh fears, girl, that you will get stronger and braver every day and block the Tuatha – block her – at every turn, just like Cú Chulainn. Nor does she want the rest of the Sighted to start feeling brave because they have a Hound again. There is power in words, and don't you forget it.'

‘What about “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me?”' asked Maddy.

‘Did you ever wonder why the old magic took the form of a pair of unicorns in the first place?' asked the banshee.

‘No, why?'

‘Earth magic is everywhere, but we can only see small bits at a time. We could not and cannot grasp how big nature is, so we condensed it down to a single pair of mythical creatures, whose image spread to every country in the world. Because human and faerie believed in them so much, the word was made flesh. So never mock the power of words.'

‘If the unicorns are earth and nature itself, why did the magic take a form that could be attacked, that could sicken and die?' asked Maddy.

The banshee shrugged. ‘Perhaps because nature itself, for all its magic, can sicken and die. Nothing can last forever.'

Maddy sighed. ‘Why can't we just wake the Morrighan and let her sort all this out?'

The banshee frowned. ‘Let the Morrighan dream, girl. We're all safer for it. She has powerful magic and would be a dangerous weapon to wield. Let her sleep until you have no choice but to wake her.'

Maddy sighed and rubbed her eyes with the
heel of her hand. ‘What's your name?' she asked the banshee.