The Hounds of the Morrigan (44 page)

‘They are the Twelve Pins in Faery, yes.’

‘It’s all a bit queer,’ said Brigit.

‘You know the way you can sometimes see someone who looks lost in a crowd?’ said Sonny.

‘Yes,’ Pidge said.

‘No,’ Brigit frowned.

‘Well, he might be in Faery. Have you ever known one person to stop and listen to the cuckoo calling, and the person standing beside him doesn’t hear anything, and thinks his friend is only imagining it?’

‘Yes,’ Pidge said.

Brigit half-nodded.

‘Or a girl might look into a river and shout: “Look! There’s a fish!” and her friend shouts: “Where! Where! I can’t see it!”’

‘Oh, yes!’ Brigit agreed.

‘The two worlds go hand in hand. As you know from going through the stones, you could be walking through a field and a few steps to the right of you, you could be walking in this world.’

They had eaten everything, the delicious juice-filled mushroom caps and the flaky moist trout, the hot bread and butter and the comforting broth. Cooroo had satisfied the last of his cold hunger with a couple of roasted rabbits that Sonny had produced from a pot-oven.

Sleep was overtaking them as they sat wrapped in the soft blankets before the marvellous fire.

‘Bedtime,’ said Sonny, and he took Brigit up in his arms, and led Pidge and Cooroo to a little bedroom through a hidden door in the wood-panelled wall under the low stairs that led to the loft. The door had opened when he had touched a concealed spring.

‘A secret room!’ Brigit said sleepily.

Gratefully they fell onto the small-sized wooden beds, already cosy and warm from stone jars filled with hot water. There was even a bed for Cooroo. All three of them fell instantly fast asleep.

Sonny covered them with quilts filled with goose-feathers and then he tiptoed silently out of the room and closed the door. Quickly he set to work.

First he crushed a great quantity of garlic bulbs to a paste and this he smeared all over the wall where the door was hidden, making a terrible smell. Next he went to his storeroom and from there, he rolled three great barrels, one by one, across the kitchen floor and in under the low stairs, where he stood them in a row. On top of these, he piled sacks of oats and flour, and he hung strings of garlic and ropes of onions and bunches of herbs on to nails and hooks in the panelling. A team of spiders came from their little nooks and began to spin webs between one thing and another. No one could even guess at what was hidden. It just looked like a place to keep extra stores.

Sonny now gathered the children’s discarded clothes up from where they lay, he removed the flagstone from its place before the fire, and hid the clothes in a deep hole. He replaced the flagstone and he dragged a sack of dead rabbits all over the kitchen floor and he didn’t forget to lay the scent of them on the two little chairs and the sheepskin. He took a small shovelfull of dead ashes across to the spider-webs, and after thanking the spiders and making sure they were all clear, he blew the ashes all over the place so that one would think the webs had been there for ages and that the dusty barrels and sacks hadn’t been removed for years. The last thing that he did was to wash all the used dishes and he sat himself down by the fire to wait.

All traces of the children and the fox had gone.

In the middle of the night something intruded into Pidge’s sleep.

Sounds.

Sounds of feet in the snow; sounds of people coming into the house. He heard voices speaking and Sonny’s voice answering. The only thing he could do was get out of bed and listen at a crack in the wood panelling. He stood there, stock still, but even so, he could only hear a snatch here and there of what was being said.

‘We are a party of tourists …’

‘… winter holiday … hiking …’

‘… need food and beds …’

‘See what I can do …’ Pidge recognized Sonny’s voice.

‘… others staying here?’

Then Sonny’s voice, quite clearly this time:

‘No. The place is empty. The bad weather, I suppose.’

Then:

‘Meat! Must have plenty of red meat!’

‘There’s only porridge and milk.’

‘Pap!’

‘… pap again!’

Pidge could almost see the nostrils flaring and the lips curl; even though they would now have the appearance of people, he knew they were the hounds.

Unreasonably, he felt safe although they were so close. He got back into bed and lay there listening. It’s a good job that Brigit doesn’t snore, he thought.

For a time, there was the noise of crockery and eating from the kitchen that was only just next door. Later, he heard the sound of many feet climbing the stairs to the loft.

Without caring, he went right back to sleep.

For a long time, the scrying-glass held its place over the layers of darkness that were above the table, and the snow continued to fall.

At first the women had tried to strike it away with the palms of their hands, but The Dagda’s skills would not allow them to touch it. The furious women had then tried to melt the fallen snow with gustings of hot air from their lungs; but these hot blasts had always turned cold, as soon as they reached the belt of chilled air that was over the table landscape. Over and over again they huffed and blew at the snow, but they only succeeded in creating bitter winds that tore across the table’s surface, that sent the snow swirling all the more and shrouded everything far beyond the talents of second sight.

They knew that their hounds were hopelessly lost in the now completely trackless forest; and they knew that the children and the fox had given them the slip.

As there was little use in matching magic with The Dagda in this, their efforts seemed to be entirely useless and therefore at an end. But once, when the snow had stopped briefly, they had just time to notice where the hounds were, helped by their faint cries of distress, but not time enough to discover the whitely-clad children and the snow-covered fox in the obliterating snow; for they were white upon white and silent. Later, when the snow had stopped again, they had seen the pinprick of light that was the lantern tied in the tree, and this time, they saw the forms of the children, the fox and the Elk as they approached the light. With their wands, they directed the hounds to turn towards the remote light and then the snow fell again.

Gradually the darkness over the table faded and crept away, but it wasn’t until the light of the sun came through the glasshouse roof and struck a glare from the looking-glass in reflection, that they at last found a way of dealing with the snow.

Melodie seized the looking-glass and aimed its dazzle onto the table. As if deciding that its work was done, the scrying-glass went small again and vanished. Since the little glass snowball was no longer working against them, the women were able to breathe on the table with better results. Hot winds blew over the snow and the sun glared down.

It was not very long until the snow had all gone, the land had dried out and the streams glittered in the sunlight.

Then the women were satisfied and they threw the looking-glass away.

I
N
the morning, Pidge awoke to smell freshly-baked bread and to see that the darkness of the little secret room was lanced by many fine spears of light, the strongest ones being only pencil-thin. They came into the room through small cracks in the wood panelling and they softened the darkness.

Even in these modest sunbeams, the teaming motes danced.

Cooroo was already awake and alert; and Brigit was thrashing about under her quilt, complaining that it was hot.

From the kitchen came the thump and rustling of sacks being dragged along the floor and the rumble of barrels being rolled away from in front of their hiding-place. Sonny was shouting cheerful good mornings and after they had answered him back, Pidge told the others of the hounds’ arrival in the night and how Sonny had fed them on porridge. Cooroo said that he had overheard all that had happened and indeed had stayed half-awake during the dark hours, listening for suspicious sounds from the loft above them, where the hounds had slept. This was all news to Brigit—and she was smugly gratified to think that they had spent almost a whole night under the same roof as the hounds, without being discovered.

It really was very hot inside the little room. It can’t only be the heat from the fire, thought Pidge; nor was it, for when Sonny finally opened the secret door and popped his head in, the sun’s light flooded into the room.

‘The hounds came in the night,’ Sonny informed them.

‘We know,’ Brigit said. ‘Pidge and Cooroo heard them, but I was fast asleep.’

‘They’ve gone now. They took themselves off at first light,’ Sonny said. He sounded greatly amused by it all. ‘I let you sleep on though—until I was sure that they wouldn’t make an excuse to come back—out of suspicion.’

They came out of the darkness, brushing away cobwebs, and into the brightness that filled the kitchen from the open front door. Through the horn window a soft yellow light fell onto the table where their breakfast was already set out. They crossed the warm floor on bare feet, Brigit with her precious schoolbag already over her shoulder. They sat in the same chairs by the fireside, the chairs where they had snuggled under warm blankets the night before; and Brigit unbuckled the strap and took out the socks and sandals. The sun blazed down the chimney, showing all the turf-dust in the hearth and making a strong fire look weak.

‘What happened to the winter?’ Brigit asked. She handed Pidge his sandals and socks.

‘It’s gone. The hot weather has come back,’ Sonny replied.

‘I won’t be able to wear my lovely coat and my little boots and gloves; they’d flatten me on a day like this,’ she warned. Her hair was damp from the heat in the secret room.

‘They’ve gone too,’ Sonny said.

When they had finished putting on the socks and sandals, he told them to pull back a bit and he then removed the hearth-stone to show them the empty space.

‘There’s where I hid them from the hounds last night but they are not there now.’

‘Why have they gone?’ asked Brigit.

‘Because you don’t need them anymore.’

Sonny put the stone back in place. After thinking for a moment, Brigit said:

‘They must have been only a loan.’

Pidge eyed a second pot that stood in a corner of the hearth, off the fire. There was a lid covering it, but he saw that a crusted drip on its side was hardening and turning brown from the fire’s heat.

‘Did the hounds get porridge for their breakfast as well as their supper?’ he asked.

‘They did!’ Sonny said, looking mischievous.

‘Good enough for them,’ said Cooroo, and a laugh barked out of his throat.

‘Were you up that early?’ asked Pidge.

‘I was by the fire all night,’ Sonny explained. ‘I was facing them when they came downstairs, never fear.’

‘I’m glad they got porridge,’ Brigit said. She looked at the breakfast on the table. Sonny had set it out with honey and gooseberry jam, a big bowl of strawberries, a plate of bread and butter and two mugs of milk.

‘I’d see no creature suffer hunger—the porridge took that away at least,’ Sonny declared, adding: ‘There was meat, but that is for Cooroo. Come and sit over now, everything is ready for you,’ he finished.

While they sat at the table having breakfast, Sonny took a bowl from the dresser and put it on the ground for Cooroo. The bowl contained cool meat and gravy with bread mixed into it.

‘Eat it all up,’ Sonny said to the fox.

He went to the dresser again and brought a handful of green herbs that he had taken from a jar, and he placed them before Cooroo, on a saucer.

‘Eat these as well,’ he said.

Cooroo looked at the green stuff with a disbelieving, comical expression on his face.

‘Do you think I’m a rabbit!’ he said, with a humorous crack in his voice.

‘No, I don’t; but eat them anyway,’ Sonny answered.

‘Ah no,’ Cooroo said, regretfully. ‘I can’t eat stuff like this—I wish I could.’

Sonny touched him on the head.

‘We give you this gift,’ he said in a serious way. ‘No natural hound will ever match your speed once you have eaten them.’

‘Can such a thing be?’ the fox asked, amazed and looking at Sonny’s face, wanting his hope to be confirmed.

Sonny bent right down and looked straight into the fox’s eyes.

‘Yes,’ he said, and Cooroo licked his hand.

‘Eat them up,’ Brigit’s cheerful voice advised him, as he took a first cautious taste. ‘We got some of those from Old Daire and Finn in the Hidden Valley, didn’t we, Pidge? They made us as fast as the wind.’

There was a very funny look on the fox’s face as he ate the herbs.

Brigit was laughing at him.

‘He looks just like the hounds when they got the porridge, doesn’t he, Sonny?’ she said. It made no difference that she hadn’t seen it happen, she just knew it.

‘He does,’ Sonny agreed.

‘How long does the effect last?’ Pidge wondered thoughtfully.

‘As long as it is needed. Cooroo needs it all of his life; but you are luckier than he is.’

When everyone had finished eating and after Cooroo had given a last loving lick to his bowl, Sonny said that it was time for them to go—the day ahead of them might be busy.

‘I must tell you now that the hounds have gone ahead of you into the next valley—if that is where you are thinking of going,’ he said gravely.

‘They’ll get a big surprise when they find out we’re not there,’ Brigit said and she grinned.

‘Do you know your minds yet—about going that way?’ Sonny asked lightly—without giving urgency or importance to the question.

Pidge looked surprised, because it had not occurred to him to do anything else.

‘If we don’t, we’ll have to go back the way we came, won’t we?’ he checked to make sure.

‘Yes.’

‘Somehow, it feels right to go on. What do you think, Brigit?’

She frowned in thought.

‘Have we got to go over a
whole
mountain?’ she asked, before she made her mind up.

Sonny smiled.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Less than half way. And it’s more like a rising walk than a climb. After you’ve reached the Pass—the track goes down on the other side into the next valley, in an almost exact copy of the way it goes up on this side.’