The Changeling (4 page)

For a brief moment Aoife was giddy with triumph. Two minutes! Then reality intervened. It wasn’t possible; she must have set the timer wrong. Still breathing hard, she dragged her fingers through her tangled hair. Hawthorn blossoms showered out. Her dress was still covered with mud from climbing into that icy pool.
Down . . . Down
 . . . She had set the timer wrong. She took a deep breath, and walked into the house.

Her mother was in her usual place at the kitchen table, working on local farmers’ accounts, her dark blonde hair dragged back into a scruffy plait. The sink behind her was stacked with plates. She glanced up as Aoife passed. ‘I thought you were going to the cinema, sweetie?’ And stayed staring, pushing back her chair and standing up. ‘What on earth . . .? Hey, wait, don’t go – what happened to you?’

Aoife came back to the doorway. ‘We went for a walk and I fell in a bog hole.’ At some point she would tell her mother the whole story, but right now she needed to get her head in order. And she wanted a shower. ‘Is there any hot water?’

Maeve, shocked but half laughing, was coming towards her with her arms held out. ‘You poor thing. Are you all right?’

‘Grand.’

‘Oh. Oh my God.’ Now Maeve had both hands pressed to her mouth, eyes staring – she seemed to be becoming more shocked as the seconds passed, not less.

‘Mam, calm down, it’s just a bit of mud. Is there any hot—?’

‘Where did you find that?’

Aoife said, confused now, ‘Find what?’

‘That.
That
.’

‘Oh, you mean this.’ She touched the heart locket. ‘I dropped my phone in Declan Sweeney’s field and I found this when I was looking for it. Weird, isn’t it, how it turned up after all this time? I must have lost it when me and Carla used to play in there – do you remember we had this game called—’

‘Let me see it?’

Aoife unclipped the chain. ‘Are you all right, Mam? You look kind of . . . It’s nice, isn’t it, having something from when I was a baby? After all the photos were lost.’

Maeve didn’t answer; just took and studied the locket very closely, reading the name. Opened it. Kissed the picture of the baby. Closed it. Tears were leaking down her face.

After a while Aoife said, not knowing how else to break this strange emotional impasse, ‘It’s too tight on me now.’

Maeve looked up at her vaguely; the tears were still trickling, and she kept wiping them away with the back of her hand.

Aoife said, ‘It needs a longer chain. Do you have an old one lying around somewhere, if you don’t want to buy one?’

There was a long pause, in which her mother seemed to have a hard time understanding what she’d just said.

‘Mam, a chain? You know, so I can wear it.’

‘You want to
wear
this?’

‘Well . . . Yes. I’d like to. Isn’t that OK?’

‘Sweetie, it’s kind of a precious memory.’

‘I know it’s the only photo of me we have, but I’ll take care of it, I promise. I really like it, it’s so pretty.’

But Maeve kept the locket in her hand, turning away from Aoife like she was afraid of being robbed. ‘I’ll just put it away somewhere safe for now.’

‘Mam—’

‘Have a shower, Aoife, before I use all the hot water doing the washing-up.’

In the spotty bathroom mirror, she looked even worse than she’d realized. She had streaks of mud on her high cheekbones, like an ancient hero going into battle. The green dress was ripped under both arms. Her hands were badly scratched; on her right, new red scratches crisscrossed the long silvery scar she’d got from falling off her first bike and grabbing hold of a line of barbed wire – she didn’t remember that happening, but her parents had told her about it. She pulled off the dress, dumped it by the washing machine, and stood in the sputtering shower, shampooing. More cream blossoms poured out of her red-gold hair and swirled in a pale whirlpool down the drain.

She went upstairs to her bedroom wrapped in the towel and rummaged for a T-shirt and jeans. While in the shower, she had received nine texts from Carla:

killian message me from ifone!!!!!!!

on Facebook!!!!!!!

hey text me

killian message me again!!!!!!!!

killian thinks film terrible

txt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hey text me

txt

dinner

Aoife left it till later to text back. Dianne Heffernan always put her daughter’s phone on top of the dresser when the family was eating, and the beep of an incoming text would only be a torment to Carla. She brushed the space bar of her ancient PC, waking her Facebook page. In between texting Carla, Killian had managed to post a clip of a leprechaun jigging at the foot of a rainbow, pulling gold out of his pockets. Darragh had liked it a few minutes ago. The birthday film was a romantic comedy. The lads must be getting bored.

Darragh posted:

I saw a goblin today

Aoife typed:

Where? In the mirror?

and got an instant ‘like’ off Killian.

She thought about deleting the leprechaun post, but there was no point getting defensive. She’d made a mistake about the child. She’d just have to live it down.

She sat cross-legged on her bed with her back against the wall, pulling her guitar into her arms. Eminem, Nirvana and Lady Gaga gazed down from tattered posters. So much history on these walls – photos of herself and Carla, same as in Carla’s bedroom. Old drawings of Manga characters, done in national school. Other singers’ song lyrics, her favourites, written out by hand. One or two of her own, but she hadn’t put her name to them.

She started picking out a tune that had been running through her mind for days. She hadn’t had any words before, but now she sang under her breath:

‘Drifting like a ghost in the water –

Could have been anybody’s daughter . . .’

And shivered. Was that the answer to what happened today, rising from her subconscious – had the child been a ghost? Maybe a little girl had drowned in that pool a long time ago.

Stop. There was no child.

Aoife heard her father come through the front door downstairs, struggling under a heavy load, dropping it in the hall. More old books, no doubt. He had been at a car boot sale in Clonbarra, and he wouldn’t have been able to resist buying boxes of cheap second-hand hardbacks. James O’Connor was obsessed by the old stories – ancient Irish tales that nobody else under the age of eighty gave any thought to now. He was a carpenter, but the collapse of the building trade in the recession had left him plenty of time on his hands to read. He had so many books now that he had run out of shelf space in the back room. Tattered volumes were piled everywhere in the house, including up both sides of the already narrow staircase.

‘James?’ Maeve called her husband into the kitchen. He went in; she murmured something, and he shut the door.

After a few minutes he cried out – a deep painful cry, as if horribly wounded.

Aoife leaped down the stairs, into the kitchen. ‘Dad, are you all right?’

Her parents were standing in the middle of the room with their arms around each other. Her father’s shoulders were bent and head was lowered, resting against his wife’s cheek.

‘Dad, what happened? What’s the matter?’

Looking past him at Aoife with a weak smile, Maeve said, ‘Nothing’s the matter, darling. Did you finish your shower?’

‘Yes, ages ago.’

‘Then go and dry your hair.’ Her mother’s hand was folded into a soft fist, resting against the small of her husband’s back.

‘It
is
dry.’

‘Finish drying it properly, sweetie.’ A glint of gold was visible between her mother’s fingers.

‘Mam, is this to do with me finding my necklace and it having my baby picture in it?’

Her father trembled. Maeve tightened her grip on the heart locket, hiding it from view. ‘Nothing’s to do with anything, sweetie. Go dry your hair.’

That night, Aoife was woken by small icy fingers squeezing her wrist. Still half asleep, she moaned: ‘Who’s that?’