Page 32 of House of Furies
Around and around we went, shrieking with laughter, smacking each other on the shoulders with our sword-sticks. Then she ran away from town and I followed her, into the wood, to the parts of the cove where I was never supposed to go. I hated listening to my mother’s superstitious nagging. Her stories were dazzling but couldn’t be true. Fairies and devils andall sorts in the wood. It was just a bunch of bushes and grass and trees, nothing scarier in there than a rabbit ready to startle you.
I followed Mary into the wood, up a hill, running out of breath but loving every second of it. I’d be hided for this when mother saw how dirty my feet had gotten. It didn’t matter. I ran after her, giving chase, little legs working hard. We crested a shallow hill and stopped short, oohing and ahhing at the sweet fairy ring that had sprung up around a kind of natural well. I picked up a stone and tossed it into the water, laughing.
“What if a water spirit’s inside?” I asked.
Suddenly it was night. The dream didn’t feel fun anymore. Mary was there but she looked sad. She sat next to the fairy ring and shook her head.
“You shouldn’t throw stones. That could be someone’s house.”
That was silly. What could live in that water but a fish or frog? I tossed another stone in, but it did not plop. Someone had caught it. Someone angry. A gray-green figure slid out of the water, its face and shoulders covered in slime. It was naked, but all I could see were its huge silver eyes.
“Little greedy child,” it whispered, hoisting itself higher until it loomed above us. I heard myself scream. “You disturbed the water and now I shall take her back home. She’s mine again, little greedy child, and you are alone. You are alone.... Alone...”
The thing snatched Mary by her hair and pulled, draggingher into the water, plunging back below, her small legs kicking, thrashing, spraying murky water in my face. I toppled in after her, crying, reaching for her.... But she was gone. I stared helplessly into the surface, but it only reflected my face and the stars.
I heard her voice from deep, down below.
Don’t cry, Louisa, I’m only going home.
Chapter Nineteen
The first crack of thunder jolted me out of sleep.
One crash and then another. Nature’s horrible fury shook the barn. I nearly leapt up off the hay bale, the book on my chest clattering to the floor as more thunder rumbled overhead. My dreams had been full of dark, swirling entities and someone crying far away, obscured by a misty curtain I could not penetrate. It was my mother’s voice in the dream, calling to me, begging for something, but the words were pulled apart like tufts of yarn before they reached my ears.
Fell winds pounded the barn walls, and below I heard the horses stamping their feet in alarm. The thunder rattled in my bones, and my hands shook as I retrieved the book. It had fallen open on the last page I’d read before sleep took me—page ninety-eight: “The Enduring Mystery of the Lost Order.”
The Lost Order would have to wait. Just below the howling winds and thunder, I heard voices outside. That didn’t make any sense, not unless Chijioke was gathering up the last of his gardening materials before the storm struck in earnest. But it was not his voice I heard moaning in between blasts of lightning, and it seemed too late an hour for cleaning up the yard tools. Peering out the window, I saw the moon at its highest point, glittering behind storm clouds. Midnight.
At first I thought perhaps someone had become lost andwandered onto the property, calling for aid. But when I crossed to the opposite window and pressed myself close to the cold glass, I saw instead that a solitary figure stood with arms raised in the space between the house and the back gardens. She had a woman’s slender build and small hands, and she seemed not to mind at all that a tempest raged around her.
Her words carried to the barn but I could not make them out. And so I bundled Mr. Morningside’s book back into my skirts and climbed down the hayloft, stepping lightly as I rushed past the pawing, snorting horses. Here it was again, my damned curiosity. I could climb back up into the hayloft and try to shut out the storm and sleep, but instead I was throwing open the barn doors, plunging out into the swirling winds, and shielding my eyes from the bits of grass and dust swept up into the atmosphere. It felt like the full weight of heaven was bearing down upon me, more than just the elements, more than just icy air and thunder.
I tumbled forward at once, foot caught in one of the yard’s many holes. Sprawled out on the grass, palms wet and skinned, I squinted into the storm, crawling onto my knees and then rising to my feet, stumbling ever closer to the figure in the clearing. Who was this person, facing down the will of the sky itself, hands raised fearlessly, feet planted sturdy and strong? It felt private, like I was intruding on her intimate conversation with the clouds. Her voice rose and fell in a kind of chant, and fragments of it sped toward me on the chill fins of the winds.
Furain an t-aoigh a thig, greas an t-aoigh tha falbh...
It was Mary. The hood on her dark green cloak had fallen back, and her brown, curling hair tossed like wild bramble, framing her pale face. Now more than ever the cluster of freckles over her nose looked like a smear of blood. I recognized the Gaelic language but not the meaning of the words. Still, their strangeness did not diminish the haunting beauty of her voice. A lullaby and warrior’s chant all in one. The refrain repeated, louder now, for I was limping closer as her song reached its crescendo.
Furain an t-aoigh a thig, greas an t-aoigh tha falbh!
The rain began not as a trickle but as one drenching downpour. I was soaked in an instant, and I wrapped the book more carefully in my skirts, desperate to keep it safe from the sudden rain. A crack of lightning struck so close to the manse’s property that I was temporarily blinded. When the shock wore off, I reeled back a little, gasping, the house illuminated as if it stood in broad daylight. I saw shadows moving among the windows, their silhouettes blinking from one floor to the next, great, grasping bodies lurking wherever I looked.
Mary’s voice broke through to me again, and I forced my way through the rain, watching, gasping once more as I realized the raindrops avoided her altogether. Not a speck of water darkened her cloak. It was as if a beam from heaven protected her, keeping her dry and safe.
I stumbled in one of the holes and swore, and she whippedaround to face me. Never could I have imagined a less kind expression, but it softened as soon as she recognized me. One of her raised hands dropped, reaching, gesturing... I regained my balance and pushed through the mud, taking her hand as the sheltering force around her blasted back the rain.
“Don’t let go,” she whispered. “Don’t let go, Louisa, it will be all right.”
But I jumped, startled by another silver spike of lightning cracking open the sky. Shadows stood in every window now, and it occurred to me that perhaps they were not up to any business inside but were in fact staring out. Watching Mary. Watchingus.
And then I remembered—tonight was to be the night of Mrs. Eames’s demise.
Mary squeezed my hand tightly just as the scream ripped through the house. No, notthescream—two of them, though they tore at me simultaneously. One was real and raw and present, shorter than the other, which sounded oddly muted, as if my ears had been suddenly dunked in water and the liquid still sloshed around in my head, dulling everything.
It gave me a jolt, a headache that came and went before I could even make sense of the pain.
And as both screams died, the wind rose harder and faster, and I huddled against Mary, anchoring myself to her, afraid then that we would be lifted into the air and dashed against the walls. But the rain eased, and with it the winds, and though Istill shivered with the cold and wet, the storm was no longer a danger to us.
