Page 22 of Heart of the Wren
Maybe he’d read my mind.
“Do you know how cartoons are made?” he asked.
I let some glass slip from the dustpan into the bin. “What’s this got to do with anything?”
“The cartoonists paint these detailed backgrounds and then they put a sheet of clear plastic on top. On this they draw the characters. And they look different. They look brighter, or simpler. That’s what magic looks like to me. There’s the detailed, real world and then on top of it is a layer of magic. Part of the world but separated from it. This layer is where the spirits are. Meditating helps me touch this layer, helps me to walk along it but I can see it most of the time, whether I’m meditating or not.”
“Okay,” I said. “So?”
“So, if there was a spirit involved, I should be able to see it. Or sense it, at least. A tingling in the palms of my hands, a breath on the back of my neck. Something. But I can’t sense anything at all. Every now and then I catch a shadowy, blurry movement out of the corner of my eye but nothingmore substantial.”
I leaned on the kitchen counter. “Which means?”
“Which means there’s bigger things happening.”
My eyes grew harder. I wasn’t exactly comforted by his words but I respected him for not lying to me. He was in the dark almost as much as I was and he didn’t try to bluff his way out of it. Didn’t present himself as an expert. He was trying to help the best he could.
I took the body of the goldfinch outside. Some of the farm’s cats had gathered and sat in a semi-circle around the kitchen. They were mostly wild cats, though generations of them lived in various places on the farm. Occasionally, the odd stray would wander through and hang around for a while before moving. Usually after getting one of the other cats pregnant. A bit like Dara, I suppose. Except for the pregnancy part, obviously. He’d wandered onto the farm, was staying for a while, and would be gone before too long.
None of cats approached the bodies of the robin or the sparrow, which lay on the ground outside. One newcomer — a black cat with a white crescent moon shape in its fur — stared at me. All three birds had flown directly into the kitchen window, one after the other. No birds had ever done that before. The fresh fallen snow had already partially buried them but I scooped up the feathery bodies and disposed of them.
I walked over the arched bridge and ducked into the pen to check on the sheep. I thought I’d seen early signs of orf in a couple of them and hoped I was wrong. I carefully examined the lips of one to find some small red bumps. A second sheep had weeping spot in its muzzle. Orf wasn’t serious,and could be easily treated, but it meant further expense and further hassle which I simply didn’t need. In a rage, I pulled off my cap and threw it against a wall. Reburying the brooch should have fixed everything but I was no better off now than I was before Dara had arrived.
An awful thought crossed my mind, a thought I wasn’t proud of. Dara was a witch. Wild though it sounded, he was. The problems really got going the day he arrived at the farm. I hated myself for thinking it but could he be responsible for what was happening? Could he control the birds the way he controlled the moths on the lane? Could he use his magic to crack a mug and a picture frame? I was being silly. Dara had no reason to cause these problems. Except now he had a roof over his head. And a job. And my affections. I all but laughed at the absurdity of him having cast some sort of love spell over me. But still. The thought was there. And it wasn’t going anywhere.
???
While Dara busied himself upstairs, I took a torch and went to find something to cover the window frame. Though only the afternoon, the gloomy weather made it look and feel much later. The air was crisp and the dogs loped by my side. I reached the storage barn and slid the door open when a chill shot through my spine. I spun around on my heels in time to catch a blurry motion in the distance. A dark shape, ill lit by the weak bulb above the barn door. The dogs didn’t appear to notice. I steeled myself and marched forward, trying to ignore the feeling of being watched. I swept my torch around the yard, and again caught a shadowy haze of movement. I crepttowards the shed, with its mossy roof and gaping walls, keeping the light pointed low. Something inside shuffled around. Heart in my mouth, I rushed inside, torch blazing, and shouted.
To my surprise, I was greeted with a pert bare arse in the air.
“Oh, bollocks!” Eddie quickly grabbed the belt of his jeans and scrambled to pull them up as he rolled.
“Lorcan!” Carol squealed as she covered herself up.
I turned my back, my face burning. “What are you two playing at?”
Eddie’s voice cracked as he struggled to explain. “We were… I wanted to…”
I held up a hand. “I don’t want the details! Why were you creeping around the yard? Who else is here with you?”
Carol brushed herself down. “It’s only the two of us. What sort of girl do you think I am?”
Chapter 14
LORCAN
A SINGLE bare bulb fought valiantly against the wintry gloom. The farm’s largest storage shed had, over the course of generations, accumulated a crushing volume of bric-a-brac. Old furniture, broken-down farm equipment, tyres, coats, boots, and more than a few damaged kettles were stacked up, stacked on, and otherwise abandoned in the vain hope that someday, one day, they might be useful. Until then, they huddled in one higgledy-piggledy mass covered with forsaken cobwebs and a sea of dust.
Carol stood in the wide doorway. “What are youse up to?”
I set down some half-empty paint cans. “The kitchen window smashed and now I need to find some tarp. Eddie, look over there, by the boat. I’m sure it’s in here somewhere.”
Eddie, with his head hanging low, shuffled over to the far side of the shed. The two man boat listed to one side on top of a rusted trailer. He grabbed the gunwale with both hands and hoisted himself up, peering inside. “Why do you have a boat?”
“Dad and Grandad used to go fishing. They brought me with them once when I was a boy. I didn’t like it. I wasn’t made for the sea.” I wiped my hands on my overalls before striding valiantly into the mass of detritus. I tested my weight on a wooden pallet.
“What happened to the window?” Carol asked.
