Page 63 of Heart of the Wren
I steadied myself, ready to protect Lorcan from the wrath of the Wrenboys with all my strength.
Clíona stood by the gaping hole in the tree trunk. “I suppose he’s all yours, boys.” Her voice changed, becoming high-pitched and almost comical. “After all, he…” Then she giggled. “I’m sorry, lads.” She giggled and giggled even as her body contorted and grew older, and smaller. “Look at his face!” She hunched over, crouched, and shrank, shrank, shrank, down, down, down, until all that remained was a plump, elderly man, no more than knee-high, dressed head to toe in scarlet.
“Hah! For feck’s sake.” I bent over to catch my breath. “It’s a feckin’ fairy.”
The walking haystack picked up the still-laughing fairy in scarletand shook him. “What did you stop for?”
The fairy in scarlet held onto his cap. “Because she asked for the dowry! That’s how the story ends! A loved one demands a dowry for the kidnapped groom so Clíona gives him back.”
“But you didn’t have to give the game away yet.” As they talked, the haystack, too, began to shrink. “We didn’t even get the chance to string our poor wren up in the tree!”
The other Wrenboys also broke out into fits of uncontrollable laughter as one by one they shrank in stature and shed their mortal disguises to reveal themselves as fairies, all. A collection of small, wrinkled men and women in old-fashioned caps and britches of red and green, doubled over as they cackled and hooted.
“We got you, boyos!” The fairy in scarlet, who had been both Mairead and the goddess Clíona, rolled around on the ground, holding his pot belly. “We got you good! Oh ho, the look on your face! Did you wet yourself? Just a little bit?”
Lorcan balled his fists and swung for the fairy. “Ye little bollocks! You’re after putting me through Hell these past few weeks!”
“That’s what you get for disturbing a fairy ring, Farmer Fitzgerald!” The fairies danced and jigged, pleased with their trickery.
“Did youse make my sheep sick?”
“We did. We did! And we would have done a lot worse to them but he put a stop to it.” He pointed to me. “We had to work hard to stop your magic from interfering with our fun, witch. And your solstice working held us off until Wren Day but even you couldn’t keep us away today. We had thepower of the Wrenboy tradition on our side today.”
Released from the burden of my leaden feet, I joined Lorcan and grinned. “Fair play to yis, fairy folk.” I winked at Lorcan. “You played a fine joke on us all. And a brave one, as well.”
The fairy in scarlet wiped a tear and giggled. “Now what do you mean, brave?”
A rumble from deep underground made us all wobble. “Maybe I didn’t mean brave,” I said. “Maybe I meant foolish.”
The ground started to rumble again like a thunderclap rolling right under our feet.
“She won’t like you impersonating her.” I gestured for Lorcan and Carol to get away from the tree.
The face of the fairy dropped and he bounded for the holly tree, only to find the hole in the trunk sealed up tight. His tiny hands searched desperately for an opening as the rumbling grew louder and louder. With a great cry, each fairy took the form of a different bird.
“You eejit!” said a crow.
“You’ve doomed us all!” said an owl.
One by one, the birds took wing, until only the fairy in scarlet remained, hopping and shouting after them. “I didn’t think she’d find out!” His arm became a wing. “She’s been asleep for ages!” His nose became a beak. “Wait for me, lads!” Finally a fully formed wren, he took flight. The flock of mismatched birds swarmed high above the field, swooping, diving, and nipping at each other, until they were over the hill, and out of sight.
With the final rumbling, Carol sank to the ground. “What… Why…?”
I laughed and gave her hand back up. “They’ve offended the real goddess Clíona by impersonating her. I doubt she’ll ever let them live in her hill again.”
“How did you know what to say?” Lorcan asked.
“I read it in the library book,” Carol said. “Dara told us the gods and goddess play out stories so I thought I should ask for a dowry, like Sean Fitzgerald’s fiancé in the story. I didn’t know it would work but I trusted my instinct.”
The hill rumbled again but this time it didn’t stop. We all staggered as the earth shifted and rose into a pile in front of us. The pile grew into a pillar. Dirt showered from all sides until the brooch — Clíona’s golden brooch — caught the moonlight.
“Not again.” Lorcan backed away from it.
“It’s okay.” Carol tilted her head. “Can’t you hear her talking? Clíona, I mean. The brooch is a gift for you. For all the trouble caused in her name.”
Lorcan looked to me for confirmation before taking the brooch and brushing the dirt from it. “Thank you,” he said to the air. “So the fairies sent the three birds?”
“Yep,” I said. “All part of the trick, meant to confuse us and make us think Clíona was responsible. They do like their little jokes, the fairies.”
