The Last of the High Kings (18 page)

Down in the Liddy house, Aisling was sorting through the wastepaper basket, still looking for her glasses, when Aidan hurled himself against the back door and burst into the kitchen.

“A big herring!” he squawked at her. He was soaked from head to foot and covered with soapy bubbles.

“Really?” said Aisling absently.

“A big huge herring,” said Aidan, clutching her hand and hauling her toward the door.

The first thing Aisling saw was an enormous white bird climbing steeply into the sky. It wasn't a herring, nor was it a heron, which was what Aidan had meant. Though she had never seen one before, Aisling was absolutely certain that it was a stork.

And it had brought, she now saw, what it is that
storks bring. At her feet, wrapped in a very familiar yellow shawl, was a baby. Aisling bent and picked it up, instantly recognizing its tiny features and its very own sweet smell.

“It's a baby!” yelled Aidan excitedly.

“Yes, it is,” said Aisling, suddenly blinded by tears. “It's a beautiful little baby girl, and the stork brought her just for us.”

 

“Look!” said Jenny.

Donal and J.J., still watching the retreating goats, thought they were already looking, but Jenny was seeing something else. She was facing west but pointing north, and since Donal knew what that meant, he looked west as well. On the edge of his vision he saw a small gray cloud, spangled by tiny points of light. Then he saw that there was a second one, arriving from the direction of the plain and moving in to meet the first.

“Two of them?” he said to Jenny.

“Two what?” said J.J., who had never figured out how to look.

“The other one is the ghost from Mikey's fort,” said Jenny.

“How do you know?” Donal asked.

“Because I talked to it. Do you know who it is?”

“Who what is?” said J.J., picking his way over the sprawl of strewn rocks that had once been the beacon.

“It's the boy ghost's dad,” said Jenny. “The first High King of Ireland.”

“What is?” said J.J.

“He made a dying vow as well.” Jenny went on. “He swore he would never leave the earth as long as his son was still bound to it. And he didn't.”

“So that was what those conversations were all about,” said Donal. “He was trying to persuade Mikey to come and take his son's place.”

“I don't think Mikey needed much persuading,” said Jenny. “Can you see him there now?”

Donal shifted his gaze until he caught sight of the new ghost, much stronger and clearer than the last one, standing on top of what remained of the beacon.

“Look, Dad,” said Donal. J.J. looked, all wrong, and Donal explained how to do it properly. On the third attempt J.J. finally succeeded, and his face softened with delight. He couldn't see any features, just the figure's outline, but he could feel Mikey's fierce joy at being there, looking out over the high place that he had loved all his life.

 

Jenny looked off into the distance and saw the white goat standing, alone again now. She wondered whether he had delivered the baby, and suddenly, unexpectedly, she felt a pang of deep regret about what she had done. She had kept her side of the deal, but true to her kind, she had tricked him as well. It had been touch-and-go for a while there, and she had been afraid it wasn't going to work; but it had, and the hatchet remained safely buried. So the human race was still free to go about destroying the beautiful planet that the púkas had made.

And whether they deserved that or not was for greater gods than Jenny to decide.

“Why don't you play him a tune, J.J.? He'd like that, wouldn't you, Mikey?”

They all turned toward the voice and saw Aengus Óg standing among the rubble.

“I seem to have missed the best bit,” he said. “What happened?”

Nobody bothered to fill him in, and he climbed carefully up the unstable side of the beacon and looked down at Mikey's body.

“Another one gone,” he said. “That's ploddies for you. Here today and gone tomorrow.”

Donal finally let go of Mikey's hand. He thought he ought to feel sad, but he couldn't. He knew Mikey was still there, watching them, far happier now that he was no longer tied to this painful old body.

“Was it those old goats made all this mess?” said Aengus.

“Yes,” said J.J., looking around at the devastation. “I suppose at some stage we'll have to think about trying to rebuild it. Quite an undertaking, though.”

“Oh, my dad can fix that,” said Aengus glibly.

“Really?” said J.J.

“Listen,” said Aengus. “My dad can fix anything. He could have put Humpty Dumpty together again if anyone had thought to ask him.”

“That's great,” said J.J. “But first things first. We'd better see about getting Mikey down off this mountain. Will you go down to the house now, Donal?”

“What about the púka?” said Donal.

“If he gives you any trouble, you tell him I'm watching,” said Aengus. “Tell him I'll turn him into a poodle and give him to your Aidan as a Christmas present. That'll soon shut him up.”

Donal ran off, and Aengus went on. “I meant it, J.J. About playing a tune for Mikey. To send him on his way.”

“But he isn't going anywhere,” said J.J. “He's just there, see?”

“All the more reason then,” said Aengus, and it was hard for J.J. to argue with logic like that. So he took
out the neglected Stradivarius and played a slow air, and even though the strings were past their best, the old fiddle pulled pure emotion out of the ether and turned it into sound. The tune was so beautiful that it brought the Dagda through the time skin, as Aengus had known it would, and the Dagda was so delighted with J.J.'s playing that he cleared everybody out of the way and repaired the beacon there and then, as Aengus had very much hoped he would.

 

Donal arrived home to discover Hazel walking up and down the kitchen, trying to comfort a fretful baby.

“Where did that come from?” he asked. “I thought you weren't going to have a baby.”

“Well, I am,” said Hazel. “The stork brought it.”

Aisling had gone out to get goat's milk and feeding bottles. So it was Hazel who made the 999 call when Donal told her what had happened. As soon as they were sure that help was on its way, Donal decided to walk down and tell Nancy McGrath that Mikey was dead.

“Not a word about the baby,” said Hazel. “And don't let her come around here gossiping!”

It was all suddenly way too much for a nine-year-old to handle, and Donal dropped into the armchair and began to cry. Hazel put an arm around him and hugged
him until he felt better; then she handed him the baby and made the phone call to Nancy McGrath herself.

 

J.J. played some reels and some jigs, and then he played a hornpipe and the Dagda danced to it on the topmost stone of the beacon. It was the most manly yet the most graceful dancing that J.J. had ever seen, and he felt honored to have had the privilege of playing for it. And all the time Mikey's corpse lay at the foot of the beacon and stared up at the sky, but Mikey's ghost missed nothing, and the tunes and the dancing went on until Jenny spotted the black speck of the helicopter in the distance, coming across Galway Bay.

“We'd best be off then,” said Aengus Óg.

“I suppose you'd better,” said J.J.

“Come and visit us soon,” said Aengus. “And don't forget you promised to make me a fiddle.”

“I will,” said J.J., “and I won't.”

He bent to put the Stradivarius away in its case, and when he looked up again, they were gone.

All of them.

“Jenny?” J.J. said, looking around. “Jenny?”

But there was no answer. The fairy child had gone, along with her father and her grandfather, to the Land of Eternal Youth.

There was one more thing that Donal had to do, because Mikey's old dog, Belle, was still shut in the house, waiting for him to come home. Someone was going to have to look after her. So he walked down to the house, but when he arrived there, he found that it wasn't empty. Nancy McGrath had gotten there before him, and Belle was tucking into a bowl of meat and biscuits.

Nancy's eyes were swollen from crying. “I can't believe he's gone,” she said. “They broke the mold when they made Mikey.”

Donal nodded, struggling with tears again.

“Would you like to keep the dog?” said Nancy. “Mikey would have wanted you to have her.”

Donal nodded again. Hazel would be delighted. Aidan would too, for different reasons, but he would
just have to learn to be nice to her.

“He thought the world of you, Donal.” Nancy went on. “I probably shouldn't tell you this before the will is read, but I know it's the truth, so I will. He left the house to me, and the home farm here. But he left the winterage to you.”

“To me?”

Donal looked out of the window at the mountain. So Mikey hadn't been raving after all. Resolve flooded into Donal's heart. He would keep his promise and go up there every day of the winter. He would stand on the beacon and talk to Mikey's ghost, and then he would walk the mountaintop, checking on his cattle.

“I suppose we should tidy up a bit,” said Nancy, looking around the room. “They'll bring him back here tomorrow, won't they? For the wake? The whole of the county will want to come and pay their last respects.”

Donal went over to the fireplace and began to poke at the deep pile of ashes.

“You may as well let that go out,” said Nancy. “There's no need for it now.”

But Donal continued to rake through the ashes. There wasn't a single glowing ember, not even a spark. The fire of the High Kings, which had burned continuously for three thousand years, had finally let itself go out.

The police had accompanied the rescue team and the scene of Mikey's death had been carefully examined and photographed. After that the body had been loaded into the aircraft, and J.J. was aware of the ghost looking on, enjoying this final irony. Mikey was getting his helicopter ride at last, but down the mountain instead of up it.

J.J. accompanied him to the morgue, then went to the police station to give a full statement. The officers were stern and punctilious. They told him that taking Mikey up the mountain had been irresponsible; but it wasn't criminal, and J.J. was certain that they didn't suspect him of foul play.

It was several hours later and night had fallen before J.J. arrived home. When he got into the house,
the first thing he saw was the baby, sleeping peacefully in a cardboard box beside the stove. J.J. stared at it in amazement, and Aisling told him how it came to be there. Then J.J. told her that Jenny had gone back to Tír na n'Óg, and the strange thing was that even though this had been what they both wanted, neither of them was happy.

“I suppose it's back to plan A, then,” said Aisling eventually. “We'd better phone Helen and Ciaran and let them know.”

J.J. nodded.

“And I suppose we'd better phone the guards and tell them Jenny is missing.”

But this time J.J. shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not that bit. Not yet.”