Shiver the Whole Night Through (5 page)

She looked proud, and happy, that I'd said this. ‘Yes. I like it. It reminds me of wind chimes. But wood. Not the metal ones.'

‘Yeah, I can see that. Can I ask you something else?'

‘Anything you like.'

‘Are you physical? Do you have, like, a physical body any more?'

‘In a way. Watch.'

All of a sudden I was hurled backwards by a strong force,
whoomp
, landing me flat on my back. It hadn't hurt, though, that was the thing. It was the closest I'd ever come to an out-of-body experience. Sláine had shoved me but hadn't seemed to move herself. And I'd felt the shove but didn't feel it. It was as if she'd acted incredibly quickly, pushing me, then rushing around behind and catching my fall, before tearing back to her starting point.

A line from some book came to me: ‘The dead travel fast.' Unexpectedly, I found myself laughing. I sat up and said, ‘That was, uh  …  interesting. How did you do that?'

‘I'm not sure. Yet.'

‘Was it speed? You went so fast I didn't see it?'

‘No. That's the funny part. I didn't really move at all.'

‘Ha. Well, it was impressive. So is that your only party trick, then?'

She smiled like a poker player who's full sure she's got an unbeatable hand. ‘I think I have a few more up my sleeve.'

I hopped off the rock and brushed dust from my coat. She moved away from me in a weird sort of gliding motion. I couldn't really say that I saw her doing it – one moment she was here, the next over there – but I saw her do it.

I think I did. This was all a lot to take in. I shivered inside as a shadowy premonition of something great and dreadful ran through me. I felt a little afraid, but not of Sláine.

I asked, to get this feeling out of my mind, ‘What was that you said earlier? Something about a flood.'

‘It's from the Bible. Noah and the Ark, all that. I thought it might be a good way to  …  introduce myself. Doesn't mean anything – just some lines I liked the sound of. It didn't scare you, did it? Maybe I should have picked something less ominous.'

‘No, it was  …  To be honest, you could have been reciting
The Three Little Pigs
and I would have nearly peed in my pants. You gave me some shock.'

‘Your name
is
Flood, right? I'm sorry, I only knew you to see you around town, really. I wasn't sure which one you were.'

I said bitterly, ‘What, you don't know Aidan Flood the dickless loser? I'm a celebrity – how could you not know all about me? Shit, they put up a Facebook page in my honour.'

‘I'd heard some vague stories. I didn't pay any attention. They seemed pretty mean-spirited.'

‘They were.'

‘Your girlfriend went off with someone else, I think?'

I sighed heavily. Raking over the ashes of my Caitlin disaster wasn't pleasant, even under such unusual conditions. ‘Yeh. She shifted this guy behind my back. Guy from the carnival. We were supposed to be a couple.
Supposed
to.'

‘I remember him. I went there one evening with my niece. He was very good-looking.'

She was smiling mischievously. I smiled back, in spite of myself.

‘He was. Ah, you know what? I think it was the best thing for us anyway. Looking back now. I'm not just, I don't know, making excuses for her or whatever? I mean I hated her for what she did, and what it brought on me. Maybe a bit of me still does. But if Caitlin cared that little for me to make an asshole out of me like that, then  …  Pff. Feck it. No loss.'

‘Caitlin. Is that how she pronounced her name, that American way? It's all wrong.'

‘Yep.'

‘You should have told her it's “Cat-leen”.'

‘I couldn't. I was in love.'

Sláine regarded me with a cool eye. ‘Were you, though?'

‘Wha—? God, I
think
so. I mean I thought I was. I don't know  …  maybe not? I don't know much of anything. Sorry, that's not a very good answer. I wish I wasn't so dumb.'

‘You're not dumb,' Sláine said. ‘You're unsure, and a little timid, and you don't like yourself – in fact you partly hate yourself. But you're not dumb, Aidan. You're just normal. Like the rest of us, ha.'

I laughed too, both at her joke and the craziness of where I found myself. How typical, I thought: I finally meet a confidante and she's a dead girl who spends her days and nights haunting a creepy old forest. But I was going with the flow, not fighting it, not worrying or overthinking. My brain told me this was fantastical and absurd, but my guts told me it felt natural. It felt right.

‘What about you?' I said.

‘What about me?'

‘I mean your  …  this. Your situation, what happened to you. What did happen?'

‘Leave that for a minute. Tell me about the bullying.'

‘Oh, so you
have
heard about the famous dickless loser.'

‘Tell me.'

I sighed again. ‘What's there to tell? I used to be a geek that everyone ignored. Then the thing with Caitlin happened and I became a geek everyone picked on. That's it, full stop, nothing more to say.'

‘I think there's a lot more to say.'

I snapped, ‘Yeah, well I don't really feel like talking about it.' I looked at her nervously. ‘Sorry. You're not going to wallop me again, are you?'

Sláine said, laughing, ‘Not unless you ask me to. It's okay if you don't want to talk about it. Raking over old coals – there's no point, I can see that. No point dwelling in the past. Life has to go on, right?'

‘Yeah,' I drawled. ‘So, uh  …  You. What's the story? You said you didn't kill yourself. Then who did?'

‘I can't tell you that.'

‘Was it someone I know? I mean, should we be alerting the cops that there's a killer on the loose?'

Sláine smiled. ‘I can't tell you because I don't know. I have some of the how, but not the who – or the why.' She frowned. ‘And to be honest? I don't think there's much the Guards can do about it.'

She must have seen some empathy or pity on my face, because Sláine reached out and put a hand to it – her touch felt like snow, very cold but not unpleasant. She said, ‘Don't be upset, Aidan. It's all right. There's nothing you can do. Things will work out, don't worry.'

‘I feel bad for you, though. I don't even know you but I feel bad.'

‘I understand that. And appreciate it. Look, there are things you can't know yet. I don't think you're ready. That's not being patronising – this is heavy stuff. But when the time is right  …  Now go home.'

‘Will we talk again? Can we meet?'

‘Of course. I'll contact you. You'll know the sign when you see it.'

‘Okay. But soon, please. I'd like it to be soon. If that's cool with you.'

She said wryly, ‘
Everything
is cool in my world. Soon, yes. Now go to sleep.'

Sláine reached out again and her index finger touched my forehead and then I –

I woke at home, feeling more rested than I had for ages. Feeling energised, electrified, on fire.
Alive
.

I guess that's what spending a few hours with the dead will do for you.

I stretched and it felt great. I hopped out of bed, went to the bathroom and looked at my reflection: I was smiling broadly. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen that. And another thing – a mark on my forehead, barely visible but definitely there. A little pink ellipse. The shape of a fingertip.

So it wasn't a dream. I'd worried that the whole thing had been invented by my mind. How pathetic would that have been? To not only retreat from the disappointments of life into a fantasy, but for that dream to be about a dead girl you didn't even know? It wasn't fantasy, though. It was real.
She
was real, and I bore the physical proof like a tattoo.

I brushed my teeth distractedly and thought back to the night before. The last thing I recalled was Sláine touching my forehead, then
pow
, lights out. She must have brought me home. Hadn't she said she couldn't enter buildings? But clearly she did, because I looked down and saw I was wearing pyjama trousers and a T-shirt – what, she'd even got me dressed for bed? And undressed.

I smiled again. Oh, this was too weird. Weird but very cool.

I skipped down to breakfast but the kitchen was empty – and it was one in the afternoon. My mother had left a note for me:

I made it and ate it and basked in quietness and good thoughts. No, not good, that wasn't right: Sláine was dead, it was horrible what had happened to her. It
couldn't
be good. Yet she hadn't seemed terribly unhappy, or traumatised. She'd seemed – at peace? Maybe.
I
certainly felt more peaceful, more content, my heart beating slow and steady, my guts not burning and twisting as they often did. I didn't understand it at all but I liked it.

I took a walk around town, seeing it through new eyes: it looked different. I suppose it
was
different now, because I was different. Something had changed in me. I couldn't have said what that was, but I felt it: change for the better.

I noticed things that had escaped my attention before, or perhaps remembered them afresh. How small the town was, how cramped its streets, though in a charming kind of way. A quaint little place that tourists would appreciate, if we ever got any. I noticed a lot of cracks in the pavement and dog shit on the ground, but surprisingly little rubbish. How the town was built in a bowl, the centre streets running flat and the outlying streets leaning in, flowing to its heart like mercury in a dish.

I also noticed the ruined bell tower of the church, bricks falling away to reveal the split, rusted bell inside. It was never used any more, and that spot was surely unsafe – loose bricks could crash to the ground at any time. For some reason, I wasn't bothered by it. Nor, apparently, were the bats swooping in and out of the bell tower. Honest-to-God actual bats, looking weirdly large from this angle, like cartoonish angels of death amassing on an abandoned holy site. Guess they can fly off if it all falls down, I thought.

A car was parked out front of the church, engine idling, a man inside checking a map. Beautiful machine, dark-green, sleek and muscular, exactly like a big cat. It might have been a Jag but I'm hopeless with car marques – can never tell them apart. I wondered if the Jag my father would be working on looked like this. The man raised a finger in salute as I passed, without looking up.

I debated whether to tell him to move his car in case the bell tower came down on it like the plunge of a giant hypodermic needle. Nah, he'd be all right.

Town was quiet, this being Sunday. On the main street, however, a Garda squad car zoomed past, blowing a tiny hurricane around my head, siren squealing, heading out of town. I figured it was a traffic accident and blessed myself, more from habit than anything else. I didn't have religious belief but old superstitions die hard; it feels nice to make a blessing for someone in trouble. I hoped nobody was seriously hurt and walked on.

I thought about that – belief. If someone had told me last week that another world existed beyond this one, I'd have told them to see a psychiatrist or get off whatever drugs they were taking. (Or give some to me, ha ha.) But it did – I'd seen it. A world where the dead aren't gone, where they can talk and laugh and touch. A world where ghostly girls move through the shadows of the dark woods, glowing like stars fallen to earth.

I passed an old gent I vaguely knew and he gave a big cheery wave. I waved back, just as cheerily. I heard the sirens again, whooping through the air, over in the distance. I guessed they were skirting the town, coming around by that estate near the golf course. It was hard to tell for sure.

After a while I went home and chilled out in front of the TV, doing the bare minimum of homework. Study could wait. Revision for my Leaving Cert could wait. The whole bloody thing could wait, while I waited for another message from Sláine.

At around six I put on the TV news and the second story, most unusually, was from my town. A grave-faced reporter in an ill-fitting suit was standing across the road from the golf club, a line of trees running behind him. I knew the spot. The river's course partly took it along there, and the whole area was a sort of nature reserve, marshy and overgrown, with walking paths and a car park. Families went there for picnics.

Also, assholes went there to shoot ducks, looking ridiculous in their army fatigues and those stupid caps they wear. I smiled vindictively and wondered if one had shot his friend in the backside. Hope springs eternal  … 

I turned up the volume and the reporter said, ‘Full details haven't been released yet, but investigating Gardaí are not looking for anyone in connection with this incident. The victim, Chris Harrington, was found by a jogger this morning, lying unconscious in this stretch of marsh behind me. It is believed he was mauled by one or more large animals, probably dogs. Sources are telling us that, due to the severity of injuries received to his face, the teenager was unrecognisable. He was identified by an eagle tattoo on his right arm. Mr Harrington was rushed to hospital, where his condition is described as “critical but stable”. His family was being consoled by local priest Father –'

I killed the sound. What the hell? Chris Harrington. A good-looking sleazeball, the year ahead of me at school. Unlike Sláine, Harrington hadn't gone on to college; he hadn't gone on to anything but hanging around town, collecting his dole and keeping a string of casual girlfriends on the go. Some people said he did some small-time hash dealing, but I only smoked the legal stuff so I wouldn't know.

I rang Podsy's mobile but it went to answerphone. I opened my laptop and went online. If anyone would know the details of what had happened, social media would.

After half an hour of searching and reading, I'd pieced together the basic facts, allowing for the usual distortion and Chinese whispers of the internet. Harrington went out last night at around half ten. He was drinking in a scuzzy pub that serves scuzzy people until they all got kicked out sometime north of one. Harrington headed home alone. After that, a gap in the narrative.

Fast-forward to this morning. He hadn't come home. Then this guy, the runner, stumbles across Harrington's body around nine: mangled, unconscious but still alive, just about. According to the online rumour mill – everyone
swore
their information was good – he'd been attacked by something, a pack of dogs maybe. Torn apart. His handsome face shredded, innards half-spilled from his body. Harrington had since gone into a coma, caused by shock and blood loss. Doctors doing all they could, et cetera.

I tried Podsy again and this time he answered: ‘Aidan. You heard about Harrington, obviously?'

‘Yeah. Man, this is nuts. What did it? I know you asked your uncle.'

‘I did. He says they
think
it was wild dogs. They're not sure. Uncle Tim says it's hard to tell because the wounds are so bad. The feckin' guy was ripped to bits. Like, I don't think there's a lot of him left to examine, know what I mean?'

‘God. I don't even want to think about it.'

Instead I thought about something else, as Podsy rambled on: Chris Harrington, and what an absolute prick he was to me. He'd been one of the prime movers in my four months of harassment. A smart mouth, always looking to make himself feel good at the expense of someone else, and for a while, I was that someone. Harrington was relentless and merciless. It was never physical with him, but any chance for a jibe or sneer, he took it.

Harrington was a bully and a jerk. I hated him as much as any of the others. And the world would probably be a better place without him in it. But was I happy that he'd been seriously injured? I didn't honestly know.

Podsy's voice shocked me back to reality, my ear honing in on one word: ‘Sláine.'

My blood chilled. Did he know something? He couldn't, but he'd said her name. I tried to play it cool, replying, ‘Sorry, what? Other phone went off there – I didn't hear you properly.'

‘I was saying first Sláine, now this. It's shocking, really. Not a good time to be a kid in this town, Aidan! You better watch out, you might be next!'

I knew he was fooling around to break the tension. I was about to say my goodbyes when Podsy spoke again, quieter: ‘I didn't like what he did to you. Harrington – that wasn't right, the way he treated you.' Silence hung between us, thick and heavy. ‘I'm not saying he deserved it, but  …  ' His voice trailed off.

I said, ‘Yeah. I know what you mean.'

‘Listen, I've to go. Mum's calling me. I didn't get the full story on Sláine from Tim yet, I'll do it soon as I can.'

‘All right. Talk to you at school, yeah?'

‘Take it easy, man.'

We hung up. I closed my laptop and then my eyes. One of my tormentors, a guy I'd wanted to batter with a hammer every time I saw his face, was now clinging on to life in the emergency ward. It didn't really make me feel better, knowing that. But being brutally frank, it didn't make me feel any worse either.

School was ablaze again the next morning. Another weekend, another young person struck by disaster, this time in radically different circumstances. And this time, of course, not dead – yet. Harrington wasn't our schoolmate any more, but everyone seemed pretty shook up. What had Podsy said: this was a bad time to be a kid and we should all watch our backs? I laughed uneasily to myself and tried to concentrate on what my teacher was saying.

We were in History, studying the Great Famine with Mr Lee. Everyone knew the basics of the story: between about 1845 and 1852, a potato blight caused mass starvation and social breakdown throughout impoverished Ireland. An estimated million people died, another million emigrated. It was a catastrophe, a huge scar on the Irish psyche which remained to this day. The Famine was still remembered, commemorated, lamented.

What I hadn't known, until this morning, was that our town suffered worse than most during those terrible times. We're cut off by the sea on one side, the forest on another and mountains on a third and most of a fourth. Back then there was really only one route in or out – through and over those mountains – and hardly anybody was taking it.

When the English authorities finally got their act together and came to help in the bleak midwinter of 1851, they arrived in a ghost town. As Mr Lee explained, virtually every last person was dead by the end: of hunger, disease, exhaustion, cold. The few who survived made for safety across the mountains, a perilous journey with low chances of success.

The company of Crown soldiers found a group of mangy dogs picking at the few corpses that weren't already eaten by wild animals. Clusters of bones, scraps of clothing; a piece of cheap jewellery here, leather boot there. Makeshift headstones dotted the edge of town, a pathetic attempt to mark the passing of parents, children, friends. But only a handful; probably by the end people hadn't the energy to do anything but wait there for death.

Just like Sláine. What a strange thought. I shivered, as though a thousand frozen hands were reaching out to me across the centuries.

Mr Lee also mentioned how the English thought our town was cursed, calling it Death's Shadow. I already knew that, we all did; not the sort of nickname you shrug off too easily. Even worse, I thought sarcastically, than ‘dickless loooooser'.

Anyway, the man in charge decided to start afresh – to slay whatever demons might be present, genuine or imagined. The whole place was razed to the ground, burned into obliteration, and completely rebuilt. Rebuilt for whom? Those few dozen who'd escaped over the mountains – and somehow survived. They returned, in dribs and drabs, bringing others with them, and people passing by decided to stay  …  and over the years, the town was repopulated and reborn.

But it never forgot: the cold, the hunger, the ever-present unstoppable death.

Mr Lee finished his talk and called for questions. A girl called Yvonne raised her hand and said, ‘Is anything left of the old town, then, sir?'

‘Well, we have the bridge on the coast road,' he said, ‘though that's a little outside town, of course. Built sometime in the fifteenth century. Apart from that, no. Not one thing was left standing.' He began gathering his things, a sign the class was drawing to a close. ‘I mean, there's underground. There're all sorts of stories about tunnels and passages and catacombs, deep underneath the town. Dating from long before Famine times, possibly as far back as the Dark Ages. They wouldn't have been destroyed in the fire –'

I was listening intently when something odd happened: Mr Lee's voice sort of stretched out into a low droning noise, like an Aboriginal didgeridoo. My vision went black at the edges, reforming into a tunnel of light on the teacher's face. He turned to me, looked me right in the eye, and said, ‘Tonight. Midnight. You know the place.'