The Hounds of the Morrigan (43 page)

Pidge read the sign, again thinking that he didn’t really like signs. Up until this, all of the signs they had come to had always led to something not right. As he was thinking this, the lantern flickered and went out, making his heart jump. Could it be possible that the Elk had brought them to a wrong place after all? But he wouldn’t do that, would he—unless, Pidge thought with a thrill of fear—unless he was not the same Elk; and how could we have known for sure with all that snow?

He looked at the door. Good or bad, he decided, we must get inside and get the cold out of our bones.

He knocked, courage in his closed fist.

‘Come in! Come in!’ called a voice from inside.

Pidge opened the door.

The first thing he saw was an enormous hearth blazing with a luxurious fire of turf and huge logs. On a little stool by the fire sat a tiny old man.

‘That’s right. Come in. Close the door against the cold,’ he said in welcome, and he picked up a quantity of dried furze and threw it into the flames, where it crackled and sent merry sparks flying up the chimney.

He looks like a dwarf, thought Pidge.

‘Y
OU
’
RE
welcome! Welcome to the Half-Way House and I’m Sonny Earley! Always a smile and a how-de-do here!’ He leapt as nimble as a goat off the stool and came towards them with his arms held out in friendship.

And Pidge thought: This time I’ll be careful and I’ll not be too quick to trust him.

‘Let me help the small one over to the fire—you must be near dead with the cold,’ the little man said kindly.

He cradled an arm round Brigit and led her to the hearth, where he helped her off with her coat and boots. He drew a small plush armchair close to the fire and he helped her to sit down.

He pulled up another chair ready for Pidge and from a cubby-hole he took a fat sheepskin and threw it down on the hearthstone for Cooroo. With no hesitation at all Cooroo crossed the floor and stretched himself before the generous fire.

‘My kneecaps feel as if they’re made of concrete,’ whispered Brigit, and she shivered.

‘Of course they do, my poor child,’ agreed Sonny Earley, and his little adam’s apple bobbed up and down with emotion like a very fast yo-yo.

He rushed away somewhere and was back in a twinkling with a couple of fluffy blankets in his arms. He glanced at Pidge who was still standing just inside the door, his wistful eyes staring at the fire as if he couldn’t see enough of it.

‘You’re dripping there like a bit of wet seaweed. Get the coat off and come to the fire and unfreeze yourself,’ said Sonny encouragingly.

Pidge came to the heat of the fire, shrugged off his boots and coat, and accepted the blanket that was handed to him. He wrapped himself gratefully in it and sat down, while Sonny got Brigit to stand up so that he could drape her well and then he put her sitting again.

‘Now take your ease and I will get some food,’ the kind little man said, and he reached into the back of the hearth and pulled forward a big iron pot that was hanging from an iron crook. In seconds Brigit and Pidge were staring into steaming hot bowls of chicken broth in which the fat floated like a thousand golden suns. Two lumps of hot bread, on which the creamy home-made butter was already melting, appeared on little blue plates on their laps. Cooroo was already lapping up his bowlful of broth with bread broken into it. Slap-plap, slap-plap, he went—just the same sound as our dog Sally, but she’s not ours any more, she’s gone, Pidge thought sadly.

Sonny sat on his stool between the two chairs and he helped Brigit to eat her soup, spooning it for her; and she didn’t mind a bit. She was able to manage the last of it herself because she was now warm and her cheeks were the colour of ripe haws. From the feeling of the skin on his own face, Pidge knew that his cheeks were glowing too.

On a shelf there was a cisheen of field mushrooms and Sonny put some to cook on a hot stone, sprinkling salt on the tender velvet of the gills.

‘Only a scratch meal,’ he kept saying.

Pidge stole a look around the room, thinking how cosy and comfortable it looked in the firelight. There was a dresser stacked with sparkling plates and mugs, and on one of the shelves there was a blue jug filled with roses and daffodils, and on a shelf lower down there was a round green pot crammed with primroses. All of the seasons are well-mixed here, thought Pidge, looking at the flowers and the cooking mushrooms, and knowing that, outside, winter ruled.

‘These are out of a nearby lake,’ said Sonny, and he attached some trout with bright spots on them to an iron spit. He stuck them well in above the heat at the back of the fire, where it was just a living glow without smoke.

‘This now is a very muddled kind of dinner,’ he said. ‘I just grabbed what was near to hand.’

‘Don’t worry—I could eat leather!’ Brigit said, and she sounded very contented.

‘Well, don’t eat this,’ Sonny joked cheerfully and he handed her a kind of leather drinking-cup.

He filled it with a glowing red liquid which he poured from a leather bottle.

‘Everything here is nice,’ Brigit said.

‘I’m glad you think so,’ Sonny replied, looking pleased.

He poured out a goblet full of the drink for Pidge, and for himself he filled a drinking horn that was decorated with filigreed silver. When Brigit admired it he told her that he had won it at a fair.

They tasted the drink and it was like swallowing cherries and blackberries and strawberries all at the same time.

‘You wouldn’t like this, Cooroo,’ said Sonny.

‘You know his name,’ Pidge remarked quietly.

‘I wondered when you’d speak,’ laughed Sonny. ‘But you are right to be suspicious. Friends told me you were coming. From a long time back, like others, I’ve known of you and your journey. And today I had messages that you were coming for sure.’

‘Which friends told you?’

‘Last night, a young merlin came and called me from my sleep. “They are still travelling and they’ve crossed a terrible chasm,” he said. At about mid-day, a thrush flew to my door. “I bring you word,” he said “they are still travelling. Compliments of a party named Needlenose.” And late today, through the white snow came a white owl who tapped on my window-pane to call me out. “They are still travelling in company with one named Cú Rua whose friends say Cooroo; and they are coming into your country,” he said. So I got everything ready for you, as you see.’

There was a pause while Sonny took the trout from the fire and gave one each to Brigit and Pidge on little yellow plates, and he put one in a dish on the floor for Cooroo.

‘Mind the bones now,’ he said.

‘That’s a bit strange about Needlenose,’ Pidge said after a while.

‘What is?’ asked Sonny, as he shared the cooked mushrooms between the two yellow plates.

‘He wouldn’t tell us which way to go, would he, Brigit?’

‘No, he said he couldn’t.’

‘Well then, he said no more than the truth—mind you don’t scald your mouth, the mushrooms are hot.’

‘But, others have shown us the way over and over again,’ Pidge explained. ‘If I’d told that to Needlenose, he might have tried to find a way for us.’

‘You were never shown the way.’

‘Oh but we were! You don’t understand because you don’t know all that has happened,’ Pidge insisted politely.

‘I know every little bit of what has happened. I know that you were taken through the stones at Shancreg by Serena …’ Sonny began.

‘That’s just it. That’s just what I mean,’ put in Pidge, nodding furiously.

‘Serena is keeper of that gateway and she took you the path in. She was only guiding you into this world. The candles are always there to welcome good friends in; for beauty as well. And it was supposed that Brigit would especially like them.’

‘Oh I did. They were gorgeous,’ she said. She held up a mushroom and popped it into her mouth and she snuggled into her blanket as if she were listening to a bedtime story.

‘Then you crossed three waters with Cathbad the Druid; first over one bridge, then back over another and then you went over the lake itself. That was for two reasons.’

‘What were they?’ Pidge asked.

‘Crossing three waters is one of Cathbad’s spells to draw good luck, for luck is a thing separate from the Gods and lies in no one’s hands; but it might be attracted. Besides that, you only really began your journey when your feet touched the land on the other side of the lake; for you cannot set out on a journey of such importance without first crossing water. Water is one of the two great elements of purity and the other is fire—it is easier to cross water than to cross over fire, so Cathbad took you that way.’

‘What about the wild geese that flew over the Field Of The Seven Maines—they gave us a direction?’ said Pidge.

‘No. What they gave you was the courage to start,
believing
that you had been shown the way. It may be that as they flew, you were looking ahead of them by one or two wingbeats. If so, it was you that gave them the direction, do you see? But it wouldn’t have done at all for you to know such a thing so near to the beginning. Everything was new to you then; everything was shocking in its way. If you had known how much was on your shoulders, you might have been too unnerved to go on. So, even though they appeared to be giving you a direction, what they really gave you was courage.’

‘Oh,’ Pidge said, amazed. ‘What happened with the white birds and the kite, could you tell us?’

‘I loved that kite but it went away,’ Brigit murmured in a little grumble.

‘The hounds had reached you then and you were filled with horror,’ said Sonny.

‘Small blame to them,’ said Cooroo, lifting his dozing head from his paws.

‘The kite picked you up and the birds hid you from the hounds and then you were set down. It confused the hounds and gave you a new start—for it was always known that no matter where you were placed, you would find your own way again. And it showed you as well that you had powerful help, as knowing this thing would strengthen you inwardly.’

‘And there was Finn and Daire and the Hidden Valley’, Pidge prompted him.

‘Surely it is all very simple? Like everyone else, they had been warned that you were travelling; so like the rest of us, they were prepared. They went out and wandered on the chance that you would enter their country and come under their protection. Like myself, they were honoured when you did,’ Sonny replied, and he smiled with immense pleasure.

‘There were two wild geese flying just before we went with them,’ Pidge said.

‘Yes, but they were really saying—“do not be afraid to go with Finn and Daire as they are friends and you are in their country.” In the valley they hid you from the hounds for a while and they fed you.’

‘It was lovely in that valley,’ Brigit said.

‘What about Hannah who did all that washing? What about the way she ran with us for miles and miles?’ Pidge asked, although he felt he knew the answer.

Sonny’s eyes twinkled.

‘She broke your scent and took you the miles to give you another start. No one ever said: “Go this way,” or, “Go that way,” after you had crossed the lake. You always walked on following your own mind,’ he said.

‘Suppose the journey should have been on the other side of the lake and not this side at all. What then?’

‘Why, then you would have crossed back, you would have felt it. Now do you understand?’

‘Yes, except for the nuts. How is it that all the things we needed were already inside, if no one knew the way we were going?’

‘The easiest thing of all to tell,’ Sonny answered. ‘Each nut is empty until your need is known. You can crack one now if you like and see for yourselves.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t do that,’ Pidge exclaimed, horrified. ‘We might need them all. Do you know what will happen next, after we leave here?’

‘I don’t know that at all,’ Sonny said.

‘One more thing. Cooroo showed us the way through the forest, didn’t you?’ Pidge said, turning to the fox.

‘Of course not,’ Cooroo answered, sounding very surprised. ‘It’s
your
journey—yours and Brigit’s. I found myself in a strange place and I came with you for company’s sake, remember? And then it was fun to know that I could tantalize some hounds, safely! I’m the scout, but you’re the captains. I showed you easy ways to go and how to fox the hounds, but it was always your choice.’

‘I see. Is this Half-Way House half-way to where we’re going, do you think; or could it be half-way to home?’ Pidge wondered.

‘It’s half-way to many places, but no one knows at all where you are going, except that tomorrow you will have to go through One Man’s Pass at this end of the valley, or go back the way you came. There are only those two ways from here, unless you go over the mountains.’

‘I’m not going over any old mountains! Why is it called One Man’s Pass?’ said Brigit.

‘Because it’s a narrow way. Not as narrow as the way into the Hidden Valley, but narrow enough, all the same.’

‘Are we still in Ireland?’ she asked.

‘You are.’

‘But I thought you said we were in this world. What’s this world?’

‘You are still in Ireland, but you are in Faery too. Here it is like, and it is unlike, the same and not the same. Some people call it Otherworld and some people say Tír-na-nÓg. You wouldn’t know what Cooroo was saying to you if you were
only
in Ireland. Do you see?’

‘Sort of,’ she said, and she frowned hard to make her head work better.

‘But we were only in Ireland when a frog spoke to us, weren’t we?’ Pidge asked dubiously, still trying to understand.

‘Puddeneen!’ Brigit said. ‘His name was Puddeneen Whelan.’

‘True, you were. But already, even then, elements of this world had touched and come into yours. You’d noticed a lot of strange things before then, hadn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Pidge agreed.

‘Our frontiers are made of mists and dreams and tender waters: thresholds are crossed from time to time. And so, you understood the frog because there was already a mingling, do you see?’

‘Are we really in Tír-na-nÓg? Are these mountains the Twelve Pins?’ Pidge asked.