The Book of Secrets

150 x 216 (18MM SPINE) CMYK

O’BRIEN

The door flew open, and Granny stared out at Cat with wild eyes.

‘So,’ she said, almost in a whisper, ‘they’re back.’

For the first time in over fifty years, the Trooping Fairies are in the small town of Clonbridge for their annual Revels.Their arrival awakens other creatures, who have mischief and chaos in mind.

Eleven-year-old Cat is in more danger than most.

She has the Sight, like her granny before her, and that makes her a magnet for all things supernatural. But when the wild magic hurts her family, she needs to find a friend she can really trust. Together they face real danger and must use all their wits and bravery to save those they love, before the sun rises …

Cover illustration by Shona Shirley Macdonald ISBN 978-1-78849-320-8

obrien.ie CHILDREN’S FICTION

9 781788 493208

Also available as an eBook

‘Danger lurks where fae-winds blow ...’

Alex Dunne is an Irish author living in Canada. She spends her time thinking up magical tales for children, teens and adults and drinking far too much tea. Alex has a BA in English & History from the University of Limerick and an MA in Literature & Publishing from NUI Galway. She is a co-founder of Silver Apples magazine, an online literary journal dedicated to showcasing the best of Irish and international writing. The Book of Secrets is her first published novel. You can follow Alex on Twitter and Instagram @alexdunnewrites

‘Danger lurks where fae-winds blow ...’

First published 2022 by The O’Brien Press Ltd, 12 Terenure Road East, Rathgar, Dublin 6, D06 HD27 Ireland.

Tel: +353 1 4923333; Fax: +353 1 4922777 E-mail: books@obrien.ie Website: obrien.ie The O’Brien Press is a member of Publishing Ireland ISBN: 978-1-78849-320-8 Text © Alex Dunne 2022 The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted Cover by Shona Shirley MacDonald Internal illustration by Emma Byrne Design by Emma Byrne Copyright for typesetting, layout, editing, design © The O’Brien Press Ltd All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or in any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

13578642 23 25 24 22 Printed and bound by Scandbook AB, Sweden.

The paper in this book is produced using pulp from managed forests.

The Book of Secrets receives financial assistance from the Arts Council.

Published in

For my mother, who taught me to believe in fairies.

Contents Prologue: When the Fairy Wind Blew In

11

Chapter One: Once a Witch …

16

Chapter Two: An Armour Against the World

24

Chapter Three: Iron, Bread and Salt

34

Chapter Four: The Book of Secrets

46

Chapter Five: Mischief in the Making

57

Chapter Six: The Not-Brother

62

Chapter Seven: The Hospital

72

Chapter Eight: How to Catch a Clurichaun

82

Chapter Nine: The Clurichaun’s Riddle

94

Chapter Ten: The Thrill of Chaos

107

Chapter Eleven: The Coachman

113

Chapter Twelve: Silver and Gold

126

Chapter Thirteen: A Lonely Voice

135

Chapter Fourteen: The Lake That Wasn’t

147

Chapter Fifteen: Spirits and Stone

156

Chapter Sixteen: The Green Rath

166

Chapter Seventeen: The Revels

177

Chapter Eighteen: Breadcrumbs

188

Chapter Nineteen: The Point of It All

200

Chapter Twenty: A Bad Bargain

202

Chapter Twenty-One: Through, Between

214

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Girl Who Sees What Others Cannot

225

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Last Stand

233

Chapter Twenty-Four: The End

243

Epilogue: The Most Fun He’d Had in Years

250

‘The NEW Book of Secrets’ by Caitriona Donnelly

253

7

November Eve brings dangers untold For those who tread the fairy road, Who walk the line ’tween life and death, And awaken beings that take no breath.

So, listen close and heed this tale If your wish is to prevail.

When moonlight flees from darkest sky, That’s when this spirit passes by.

A faceless rider you may see, Who seeks to take thy life from thee.

Though his touch be cruel and cold, He seeks silver, never gold.

A lonely voice leads travellers astray, Her watery kingdom is where they’ll stay.

But as rivers into sea must flow, So too must this maiden go.

And all souls shall be free to roam, Once the maiden has gone home.

Dangers lurk where fae-winds blow, And treachery you’ll find there when you go.

Open your eyes, look through, between, Not all you see is as it seems.

The trickster knows more than he shows, And all flee once the rooster crows.

Prologue

When the Fairy Wind Blew In

W

hen the fairies arrived in Clonbridge town, the wind

changed direction. It blew away the rain that had battered the town for weeks and brought with it a low, rolling mist and the promise of frost.

The fairies slipped through the streets in groups of two or three, spreading minor mischief as they went – tipping over rubbish bins, swiping spare keys from under flowerpots, and pulling spark plugs from cars. They did not linger long, for they had work to do before the night was through.

The sky was already beginning to brighten when the fairy troop arrived at their final destination – the crumbling ruins of an ancient fort that sat on a hill just outside Clonbridge, 11

THE BOOK OF SECRETS

shrouded by a thick forest of oak and hazel. The locals called this place Cullane Fort, but the fairies had another name for it.

It was an older name, a secret name – an Ráth Glas. The Green Rath. They whispered it into the early morning air and felt rocks and roots shift beneath their feet. As their magic wound its way across the hilltop, the earth began to stir its ancient bones. It had been many long years since the Revels were held in this place, but the land does not forget.

As the fairies looked on, the stones of the Green Rath began, impossibly, to move, as though an unseen hand was rebuilding the fort from the ground up. Within moments, the broken-down walls were already waist-high and a pair of weathered hawthorn bushes that flanked the entrance began to curve and twist until their branches formed an archway. The older fairies smiled. They remembered the Green Rath in its glory days when it was the finest fort in all of Ireland. It was good to be back.

So entranced were the fairies, they failed to notice the creature who watched them from the shadows at the edge of the clearing. He was tall and thin with long, twig-like fingers, a toowide mouth, and eyes of rusty red. His lower half was covered in a dark, matted fur tangled with leaves and twigs, and in place of feet were a pair of shiny black hooves. He was a wild thing, a creature of forest and stream, and he had been asleep almost as 12

When the Fairy Wind Blew In

long as the Green Rath had. An unfriendly being at the best of times, his temper was not improved upon discovering it was the Sídhe – the Trooping Fairies – who disturbed his decades-long slumber.

‘Foolish things,’ he muttered, curling a lip in disgust. ‘I thought I had seen the last of their kind decades ago.’

He was about to slip away and find some dark place to sleep undisturbed when the breeze that had carried the scent of the fairies up the hill and into his lair rose again. This time he caught a taste of something else on the air. Sea brine and brimstone. He sniffed. It seemed he was not the only one the Sídhe had awoken this night. There were other beings, more fearsome than he, who walked the roads around Clonbridge again.

The creature paused to consider this information and a new plan began to form. If there was one thing he valued more than his solitude, it was the opportunity to sow a little chaos. He would need to set a few things in motion, but if all worked out, perhaps the fairy Revels might prove to be of interest to him after all. He made a decision.

Soundlessly, he stepped into the clearing, startling a group of fairies who had been relaxing against the walls of the Green Rath. One of them, a youth with long, sleek hair the colour of spun gold, jumped to his feet and bowed.

13

THE BOOK OF SECRETS

‘M-master Pooka,’ he stammered. ‘It has been a long time since we’ve seen you at court.’

The creature called the Pooka grinned. It was not a friendly smile.

‘Too long,’ he replied. ‘It’s high time I paid your queen a visit, wouldn’t you say? Tell me, lad, when do she and her retinue arrive?’

‘She and the king are due to arrive after sundown on Samhain, two nights hence,’ said the youth, recoiling slightly from the musty, damp-earth smell of the Pooka.

‘Good. That gives me plenty of time to get her a gift. She so enjoyed my last one, after all. Better run along now, the sun will be up soon.’

The young fairy nodded in relief and hastened into the mound with the rest of the Sídhe. None of them thought to offer the Pooka shelter from the fast-approaching dawn, but the creature didn’t mind: he preferred his own company anyway.

When he was sure he was alone in the clearing, the Pooka raised his arms to the sky and whistled. From the branches of a nearby tree came a single magpie who circled the creature once before coming to rest on his outstretched hand.

‘Master,’ squawked the magpie. ‘It has been a while. How can I be of service?’

14

When the Fairy Wind Blew In

The Pooka leaned in close to the bird and whispered in his ear, ‘I need you to pay someone a visit …’

When the Pooka was done, the magpie nodded once and took flight, heading directly for the town below. The Pooka glanced at the rapidly brightening sky before melting back into the shadows of the woodland. It was time to rest and gather his strength.

He had a busy night ahead.

15

Chapter One

Once a Witch …

N

ow that the rain had finally stopped, Cat and her

friends were allowed outside for eleven o’clock break for the first time in what felt like forever. When the bell rang, the whole class jumped to their feet and charged for the door, ignoring Mr Brennan’s shouted reminder to stick to the schoolyard because the field was still wet and boggy after the latest downpour.

Cat hoped the drier weather would last throughout the weekend because tomorrow was Halloween and she had plans.

Top of the list was trick-or-treating. Now that she was eleven years old she was painfully aware that her trick-or-treating days were numbered so she made a solemn promise to herself to make the most of it this year … just in case. After they had their fill of chocolate and sweets, she and her friends would pay a visit to the local bonfire. Some of the older children had been stockpiling 16

Once a Witch …

wood for the past few weeks and the word around town was that it would be the biggest bonfire Clonbridge had ever seen.

Of course, that was the rumour every year and every year it was much the same – a mildly disappointing affair broken up by the Gardaí as soon as the first crack of a firework was heard. It didn’t matter, Cat was still excited. Halloween was her absolute favourite time of year.

The only downside to her plans was that she had to bring her baby brother Mikey along. Mikey was fifteen months old and couldn’t walk for very long before crying that he wanted to be carried. Cat tried to protest that Mikey was too small to appreciate Halloween, but her mam had stood firm, saying that Mikey deserved to join in the fun and reminding her that she didn’t have time to bring him herself.

‘You know I have my classes on Saturdays, Kitty-Cat,’ she said, ignoring Cat’s scowl at the use of her hated nickname. ‘Please, I really need to you to help me out. You only need to bring him up and down the street and then you’ll have the rest of the evening with your friends, I promise. Besides, Granny will be around if you need anything.’

‘If Granny’s there to watch Mikey, then why do I have to bring him at all?’

Her mam didn’t answer. She just gave Cat one of her legendary 17

THE BOOK OF SECRETS

because-I-said-so stares that meant the conversation was over.

Cat’s sense of injustice deepened when her mam returned from the shops the following day with two costumes – a plastic Batman outfit for Mikey and a pointed witch’s hat for her.

‘But I was a witch last year. I wanted to go as a haunted doll this time!’ she said with indignation.

‘I know, Cat, but I couldn’t get to the shops any earlier and they were sold out of almost everything,’ said her mam as she tried to feed a protesting Mikey, who, on top of being the most annoying baby in the world, was also fussy around food. ‘You’ll have to just make do.’

Before Cat could formulate a suitable reply, her mam had turned away to tend to Mikey who was sobbing over his upended bowl of Coco Pops.

Just like that it was settled. She would be bringing Mikey trickor-treating and, once again, she would be dressed as a witch.

After a quick detour to the school’s library room to return the book she had borrowed, Halloween Through the Ages, Cat stepped out into the yard and spotted her friends huddled in a circle by the fence.

‘Cat!’ Jess shrieked happily. ‘Come join us. We’re telling scary stories.’

‘Karol was telling us about knick-knacks,’ added Sarah, Jess’s 18

Once a Witch …

twin sister who had been born five minutes before her and clung to the title of ‘older sister’ fiercely, always cutting across her twin whenever possible.

‘Nocnica,’ corrected Karol, blushing slightly to find himself the centre of attention. Karol was a quiet Polish boy who had moved to Clonbridge last year. He was nice, but painfully shy. When the twins noticed he spent most of his time alone they quickly co-opted him into their friend group.

‘Whatever,’ said Jess, rolling her eyes with exaggeration. ‘Go on then, tell us more about them.’

‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘my brother Lukasz says they come to your room at night when you’re asleep and sit on your chest and suck your soul out of your mouth. Lukasz says that’s why you should always sleep on your side. They can’t steal your soul when you’re on your side.’

‘That’s stupid,’ said Shane, a tall, freckled boy who was leaning against the fence reading a comic and eavesdropping on their conversation as always. She wondered why he even bothered.

Cat knew for a fact he didn’t like her, and she suspected he didn’t like her friends much either. Shane didn’t seem to like anything.

‘I don’t think anyone asked your opinion,’ said Sarah, shooting Shane an angry look. ‘Go on, Karol, how else can you stop the Nocnica?’

19

THE BOOK OF SECRETS

‘Well,’ said Karol, eyeing Shane warily, ‘a stone with a hole in it can make them disappear. I don’t know why …’

Shane snorted again, ‘So what, you just carry a stone with a hole in it around with you all the time? That’s so dumb.’

‘Oh, shut up, Shane!’ snapped Ebele. ‘I want to hear what Karol’s saying.’

Ebele was the daughter of the town’s doctor. She was the smartest kid in class by far, as well as one of the kindest. She rarely got mad, but when she did, everyone tended to listen.

Shane opened his mouth as if to say something else, but finding four angry girls glaring back at him, he thought better of it and leaned back against the fence in a huff.

‘Have you ever seen one?’ Ebele asked, leaning forward in excitement.

‘I think they’re only in Poland,’ said Karol with a shrug.

‘I’ve seen a Banshee,’ said Cat and almost immediately regretted it. She hadn’t meant to tell anyone that.

They all turned to stare at her, even Shane.

‘Did you really?’ asked Jess. ‘No messing?’

Cat nodded. ‘Last year, on the night my granddad died. Me and Mam and Mikey had been staying over at Granny and Granddad’s house at the time because he was really sick and the doctors said he probably wouldn’t, you know …’

20

Once a Witch …

Cat trailed off. She didn’t like thinking about that time when everyone was so sad and she hadn’t known how to help.

‘Anyway, it was the middle of the night and this weird screeching sound woke me up. It was coming from outside and it was the worst noise I’ve ever heard, like a fork scraping on a plate or …’

‘Or Mrs Quinn’s singing!’ said Sarah, causing them all to erupt into gales of laughter. Mrs Quinn was the teacher in charge of the school choir and her enthusiasm for singing was as great as her voice was terrible.

Cat smiled and continued. ‘When I heard the noise, I ran to the window and saw a woman outside the house. There was something strange about her, almost like she wasn’t fully there.

She was just sort of floating there above the ground. And her eyes …’ Cat shuddered. What could she say about her eyes?

They were totally empty and darker than the sky on a starless night. Looking into them was like staring into a bottomless pit.

‘When she looked up at me, I thought I was going to die.’

‘What happened next?’ asked Ebele in an almost-whisper.

‘I thought I was having a nightmare at first, but then the door banged open and Granny was standing there with a face like thunder. She ran to the window and yelled at the Banshee.’

‘She didn’t!’ said Jess.

21

THE BOOK OF SECRETS

Cat nodded. ‘She did. She said, “You’ve already got him, you old crone, now away with you!” but that’s my Granny for you.’

Cat’s friends nodded sagely. They were all familiar with Granny Mary and could well imagine her threatening a supernatural being.

‘Granny told me to go back to sleep and when I woke up the next morning, Granddad was gone.’

For a moment, no one said anything. Cat looked down at her feet. She hadn’t meant to make things awkward. Suddenly, the bell rang out, breaking the silence and summoning them all back to class. Reluctantly, they trudged toward the building.

‘Did you really see a Banshee?’ asked Shane, slowing down to walk beside Cat. ‘Maybe,’ she said carefully, ‘or maybe I’m just trying to freak you all out before Halloween.’

Shane rolled his eyes. ‘I knew it,’ he muttered and stalked off.

But it wasn’t a lie. Cat really had seen a Banshee. Or at least, she thought she had. It been so long since she had seen the pale woman, she was starting to doubt it had really happened at all. Granny never doubted though. A few days after Granddad’s funeral she sat Cat down and told her she had ‘the Sight’, just like all the other women in the family.

Well, almost all the women. Cat’s mam didn’t believe in the 22

Once a Witch …

Sight and would give out to Granny every time she brought it up, telling her to stop filling Cat’s head with nonsense.

‘Every so often the Sight skips a generation,’ Granny said with a sniff. ‘I blame your granddad, bless his soul. He was a lovely man, but he wanted for a bit of imagination.’

Ever since then it had been their secret and, truth be told, it was the reason Cat was so excited for Halloween this year – she could finally swap ghost and fairy stories with Granny without her mam pursing her lips in disapproval.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a pleasant haze. It was almost midterm break, so Mr Brennan decided to take it easy on the class. Instead of their usual Friday maths and spelling lessons, he allowed them to spend an hour painting Halloweeninspired pictures. Cat painted a creepy doll with haunted eyes and sighed. Maybe next year …

23

Chapter Two

An Armour Against the World

W

hen the final bell rang, Cat and her friends grabbed

their coats and scarves from the back of the classroom and ran out the door, eager to enjoy what little was left of the afternoon.

Up until this year, Granny would pick Cat up at the school gates, but now she was in fifth class Cat felt she was old enough to make her own way home. Surprisingly, her mam had agreed – as long as she came straight home and didn’t dilly-dally. This was not a hard promise to keep because there wasn’t much to dilly-dally over in Clonbridge. It wasn’t a big town – there was Main Street with the usual scattering of pubs and chip-shops, a church with an imposing white steeple, a corner shop that had seen better days, and a well-manicured sports field. The building 24

An Armour Against the World

of the motorway had seen the population of the town begin to grow in recent years, but it was still small enough that everyone knew everyone else and there were plenty of people to tell her mother if they caught her doing anything remotely forbidden.

Cat and the other girls waved goodbye to Karol at the school gates and headed for home discussing their plans for Halloween – which neighbours they should visit (the Callanans were top of the list because they always handed out full-size bars of chocolate), and which they should avoid (old Mrs Sweeney was out.

She was a monkey-nuts-and-apples kind of person and always seemed to disapprove of their choice of costume).

‘If this is our last year trick-or-treating, I want to go out with a bang,’ said Ebele. ‘No wasting time and absolutely NO fruit.’

They all murmured their agreement.

‘You should ask if you can sleep over at ours after the bonfire,’ said Sarah. ‘We can watch some scary films.’

‘Great idea!’ said Cat, already feeling a shiver of anticipation at the thought. She was never allowed to watch scary films at home, but Jess and Sarah’s older brother Conor was an avid collector of old horror movies. Last time they had a sleepover he had let them borrow Nightmare on Elm Street. Cat had nightmares of her own for weeks afterward and her mam absolutely flipped when she found out. She thought Cat was too young for 25

THE BOOK OF SECRETS

those kinds of films. She was always trying to baby her.

‘Want to come in and do homework together?’ Jess asked when they reached the gate to the twin’s house. ‘Our mam won’t mind.’

‘Count me in!’ said Ebele.

‘Cat?’ asked Sarah.

It was a tempting offer. Mr Brennan had given them fractions to do over the midterm and it would be good to get them over and done with so she could properly enjoy the break. On top of that, Cat loved spending time at the twins’ house. It was as different from hers as could be. Jess and Sarah had two other siblings – their older brother Conor, who was fourteen, and their younger brother Jamie, who was five years old. Their mam was always there when they arrived home from school, ready to dole out drinks or a snack. When their dad was there, he would crack the worst jokes that somehow still had them all in stitches laughing. Cat thought he might be the best dad ever.

Granny was always telling her there was no right way to have a family, but sometimes when she looked at her friends’ lives, Cat couldn’t help feeling a pang of envy. She loved her mam and Granny – and Mikey too, she supposed. She wouldn’t trade them for the world. But her mam worked a lot and spent most of her free time catching up on college work, so the house often 26

An Armour Against the World

felt quiet and lonely. Cat wondered what it would be like living somewhere where people were always coming and going, and she never had to sit with her own silence.

‘Sorry, I can’t,’ she said after a moment’s hesitation. ‘Granny asked me to come straight home today.’

‘Are you sure? We’re having pizza tonight and Mam will probably insist you both stay for dinner,’ said Sarah.

‘No,’ Cat said reluctantly, ‘I’d better not. See you tomorrow.’

She waved goodbye and headed for home.

She rounded a corner, daydreaming about the upcoming sleepover, when she collided with Shane who was bent over tying his shoelaces, sending them both tumbling to the ground.

‘Watch it!’ he said, dusting himself off and looking around to make sure none of the older kids had seen him fall.

‘I’m not the one tying my laces in the stupidest place imaginable,’ Cat fired back.

‘Whatever. Pay more attention next time,’ he said, slinging his schoolbag back over his shoulder and heading off down the road at a decent clip, fast enough to put some distance between them.

Cat rolled her eyes and followed. Shane was her next-door neighbour and had been for as long as she could remember.

Despite being classmates and neighbours, he never walked home with Cat and her friends. He always made sure to keep 27

THE BOOK OF SECRETS

at least a few metres ahead of them and walked with his head down and hands in his pockets – an armour against the world.

It was hard to believe these days, but there was a time when Shane was her best friend. They did everything together – swimming, painting, playing video games – but that was before his dad died.

She could still remember Shane’s face at the funeral and how he had to support his mam as she wailed even though he was only nine years old at the time. She remembered feeling the warmth of her own mam’s arm wrapped around her shoulders and knowing that no matter what happened, her mam would always be the one to comfort her.

Shane didn’t come back to school for three weeks afterwards and Cat didn’t see him around the estate. She had wanted to call over and see how he was, but her mam advised against it.

‘Leave him be, Kitty-Cat, he needs a bit of time.’

Maybe she had seen something in Shane’s face that day that Cat missed, how he was changed for good.

Then, one uneventful Wednesday, there he was – back in class and seated in his usual spot near the back of the room. Cat spent all morning fizzing with excitement. She kept darting looks over her shoulder hoping to catch his eye. She hadn’t even realised how much she had missed him. She couldn’t wait for eleven 28

An Armour Against the World

o’clock break so she could introduce him to the new girl, Ebele, and show him the Lego kit she had gotten for her birthday. But when the bell finally rang, he walked out into the yard without her. She chased after him calling his name and got yelled at by Mrs Quinn for running in the hallways. She finally found him standing on the edge of the playing field watching a group of sixth-class kids kick a football around.

‘Hi,’ she said.

He didn’t reply.

‘I’m glad you’re back. It’s been no fun without you,’ she said, suddenly feeling awkward. She had never felt awkward around Shane before, and she didn’t like it.

Still Shane said nothing. He simply stood there watching the game from the sidelines. Cat might as well have been a ghost.

‘I’m sorry about your dad,’ she said, hesitantly. ‘I know how it feels to lose–’ Shane whipped around, his eyes tight and red and his pale skin flushing in anger. ‘You don’t know how it feels. You’ve never lost anyone. You still have a dad.’

‘Yeah, but–’ ‘But what? He’s alive, isn’t he? Just because he can’t stand to be around you doesn’t mean you know how I feel. You know nothing about me.’

29

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With that, he stalked off and left Cat standing there with her mouth hanging open and a raw, searing pain in her belly. She felt as though she had been cut open.

That was the last time they had properly spoken. He was still there, still hanging around the fringes of her life, but they weren’t close, and they certainly weren’t friends. As far as Cat could tell, Shane was more than happy to remain a loner.

Still, every so often she felt a twinge of sadness when she saw him, walking ahead of her with his shoulders hunched, as though it took all his strength to keep going. To keep everyone else out.

When they reached the end of their estate, Shane turned down the garden path of number 14, as always. Cat hadn’t been inside it since before Mr Culligan died, but if it was anything like the outside, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to. Though all the rest of the neighbours made sure to keep their houses pristine and white, the Culligans’ house was mottled with green moss and the grass in the front garden was overrun with weeds. It never used to be that way. When Shane’s dad was alive, it was the prettiest garden on the whole estate. She supposed a lot of things had changed in the past two years.

The front door opened and a small girl came running out, her strawberry-blonde curls bouncing around in the wind. She 30

An Armour Against the World

collided with Shane and flung her arms around his waist. It was his little sister Jenny.

‘Hi Cat!’ said Jenny, her face still squished against Shane’s stomach. Cat smiled at her, but before she could say anything Shane peeled his sister off him and stalked inside, calling for her to follow.

‘Bye, Cat!’ she said and skipped after Shane.

Cat couldn’t understand it. Jenny was probably the only person in the world who liked Shane and he mostly seemed to ignore her. She would love to have a little sister like her – someone she could actually play with, unlike Mikey. You always had to take care of Mikey; you could never just have fun. It wasn’t fair.

The wind picked up and the biting cold made Cat’s whole body shiver. She hurried up the garden path, fumbling in her pocket to find the front-door key. She was so distracted she almost missed the small, dark lump blocking her way. It was a single magpie, perched on her doorstep as though it had been waiting for her.

‘Oh!’ she said with a laugh. ‘Hello, Mr Magpie. You frightened me. Go on now, shoo!’

She took another step forward, hoping the bird would take the hint, but it didn’t move. It just tilted its head and continued 31

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to stare up at her as though it were considering something. Then it opened its beak.

‘Cat,’ said the magpie and she felt a tiny jolt of fear in the base of her skull.

‘Wh–what did you say?’

Caw, said the magpie.

If she didn’t know better, she might have thought the bird was making fun of her.

She shook her head. This was silly, it was only a bird.

‘Well, if you won’t move …’ she said and took a confident step forward. The magpie finally took flight.

Cat didn’t bother looking to see where it went. If she had, she would have seen it land on the electricity wire a few metres above her head, where it tucked in its wings and settled down to watch her house once again.

She finally located the front-door key and was about to place it in the keyhole when the door flew open and Granny stared out at her with wild eyes.

‘What are you doing out and about? Get in, child, get in!’ She seemed flustered, almost scared.

‘What’s wrong?’ Cat asked, confused. She had never seen her Granny so pale.

‘Get in the house right now, Caitriona. There’s something 32

An Armour Against the World

out there. Something …’ She stiffened and in the silence that stretched between them, Cat thought she could detect a strange music dancing just on the edge of earshot.

‘So,’ Granny said, almost in a whisper. ‘They’re back.’

33

Chapter Three

Iron, Bread and Salt

‘S

orry, who’s back?’ Cat asked, feeling the hair on the

back of her neck begin to prickle. But Granny didn’t answer. She stormed into the kitchen, pulling open drawers and cupboards seemingly at random.

Now it was Cat’s turn to be scared. She had never seen Granny act like this before. She was normally so calm and self-assured.

Granny pulled an unopened loaf of bread out of the bread bin and grabbed the shaker of salt sitting on the dining-room table.

‘Iron,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Where would I find iron about this place? Caitriona,’ she said, spinning around to face her confused granddaughter, ‘where does your mammy keep her tool kit?’

‘Out there,’ Cat said, pointing to the shed in the back garden.

‘Do you want me to–’ 34

Iron, Bread and Salt

‘No!’ Granny said, cutting her off. ‘No, I’ll go. It’ll be getting dark out there soon. It’s too dangerous for you.’

Before Cat could protest that it wasn’t even four o’clock yet, Granny had marched out the back door with a determined set to her face. A moment later she was back, hammer and nails in hand. She paused by the back door, took a nail, and battered it deep into the mortar on one side of the door before doing the same to the other side.

‘Hand me the loaf and the salt, please.’

Cat did as she was told, wondering all the while if her beloved Granny had finally lost it. She watched as Granny ripped a handful of slices out of the packet and shoved them in between her mam’s potted plants. Then she took the salt cellar and liberally salted the path outside the door. Once satisfied, she stalked through the house and repeated the same exercise at the front door – iron, bread, salt.

‘Stay here a moment,’ she called back in. ‘I need to grab a few things from across the way.’

Cat watched, stunned, as Granny hurried across the street and began pulling leaves and twigs from a sapling growing in the neighbour’s garden. When she was done, she came into the living room, sank heavily into the armchair and sighed, dumping her collection of leaves and twigs all over the coffee table.

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‘This’ll have to do for now,’ she said. ‘It’s a pity it’s too late in the year for daisies, but maybe there’s a sprig or two of clover still hanging around. That’d do the trick all right …’

Cat entered the room cautiously. ‘Are you OK? What’s going on?’

Granny didn’t respond. She was too busy picking through the debris, weaving pieces together with surprisingly deft fingers into something Cat didn’t recognise. Her face was locked in concentration and for the first time, Cat noticed the deepness of the wrinkles around Granny’s eyes and how tired she seemed to be. It frightened her. Granny was such a strong woman in every sense of the word. When Granddad had been alive, he used to joke that Granny Mary was the brains and the brawn in their relationship. She was barely five feet tall and her wrists were thin and frail, but Cat knew her looks were deceiving – decades of lifting children and grandchildren as well as helping out around the farm had left her, in her own words, ‘as tough as old boots’. Even now, at almost seventy years old she was spry and quick-witted. When things were going wrong, it was Granny everyone turned to to help sort things out. She walked almost everywhere and would scoff at Cat’s mam whenever she offered to do her shopping. ‘Sure, haven’t I two arms and two legs?’ she would say, and her mam 36

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would quickly drop it. She knew better than to get on Granny Mary’s bad side.

‘Granny?’ Cat placed her hand on her grandmother’s arm and finally she seemed to notice her again.

‘Caitriona,’ she said, her voice strained with worry. ‘Tell me, child, did you notice anything unusual today at all? Anything different?’

‘No.’ Cat paused, remembering the magpie and how it seemed to have been waiting for her … but that was silly. It was just a bird. She shook her head. ‘No, nothing at all.’

The old woman visibly relaxed. ‘Good. That’s good. Maybe their attention is elsewhere.’

‘Whose attention? Granny, you’re scaring me!’

For a long moment she said nothing and Cat wondered if Granny was purposely keeping something from her. Finally, she patted the arm of her chair.

‘Come here, child,’ she sighed. ‘It’s high time I told you a story.’ Cat clambered on, swinging her legs across her Granny’s lap the way she had done when she was small. She was getting too big for that now, she thought.

When she was settled, Granny began to talk in the sing-song voice of hers that Cat always found so comforting.

‘Did I ever tell you about my friend Nancy?’

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Cat shook her head. The name wasn’t familiar.

‘That’s a failing on my part. I should have told you this when we first discovered you had the Sight. I just hoped … well, we’ll get to that. Let me start at the beginning. When I was about your age, I had a friend named Nancy and we were as close as yourself and that Culligan boy–’ ‘I am not friends with Shane,’ Cat interrupted and blushed when Granny fixed her with a withering stare. She wanted to argue, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Granny wouldn’t understand that some things couldn’t be fixed.

‘As I was saying … Nancy and myself were the best of friends.

We did everything together. My mammy even used to joke that we were attached at the hip. She lived in an old farmhouse outside of town that was knocked down … oh, it must be twenty years ago when the council built that bypass,’ Granny’s voice grew angry. She had a lot of disdain for the county council.

‘Before that blasted road was built there was nothing around Clonbridge but miles and miles of fields and forests and hills.

Myself and Nancy liked nothing better than to go exploring them. We’d come home up to our eyeballs in muck and were the bane of our poor mammies’ existence.

‘One day, when we were out on one of our wanders, we found an old ringfort hidden on top of a hill deep in Cullane Wood.’

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‘I know that place!’ said Cat. ‘I visited it with my class last year.’

She remembered trudging up the hill with the rest of her class while her teacher droned on about Bronze Age settlements and the important archaeological discoveries that were found there.

‘Oh, it’s a popular enough spot now,’ Granny continued, ‘but people were more superstitious back then. Ringforts were considered unlucky, and most people were wise enough to leave them well alone. But myself and Nancy were young and curious so of course we went exploring right away, clambering all over the place and sticking our noses into every nook and cranny.

Sure, what was it to us only a circle of stone atop a mound of earth? Well, we were soon to learn different. All our nosing around woke something that day, I’m sure of it.

‘You have to understand that I hadn’t yet discovered my Sight, if I had I would have run screaming from the place and never returned, but as it was, it was only a feeling I had. It felt as though we were being watched from the shadows. And there was this smell … damp and rotten. Nancy thought I was being silly; she never believed the stories the old folk told us and she had fallen in love with the peace and quiet of the place. Being the youngest of eight siblings, I suppose that was understandable enough. She couldn’t wait to go back and refused to believe me when I told her I wouldn’t set foot in that ringfort again for love nor money.

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It was the only falling out myself and Nancy ever had. She told me to stop being a baby and said if I wouldn’t go back with her then she would go herself. So that’s what she did.

‘Nancy took great pride in telling me of her adventures up at ringfort. Sometimes, she would take a book and read up there for hours at a time until it was almost nightfall. She asked me time and again to go back with her, but I was too afraid. I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something there, something wrong.

Maybe if I had gone, things would have turned out differently.

‘The year we found the fort, Halloween fell on a Friday – I remember as easily as I remember my own birthday. Back then Halloween wasn’t like it is now. We would play games like snap apple and hope to find the ring in slices of barmbrack, but there was none of that American trick-or-treating nonsense. At least not around these parts. We knew better than to go out gallivanting on Samhain when the walls between the worlds grow thin. Once the sun went down, most of us were content to stay indoors where it was safe.

‘That day we finished school and I walked home with Nancy as always. It was a cold, foggy afternoon and all the way home I had the feeling we were being watched. It was exactly the feeling I’d had that day up in Cullane Wood. I wanted to tell Nancy, but things had been strained between us since our falling out.

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I didn’t want another fight, so I said my goodbyes and hurried home to help with the housework before dinner.

‘When I lay in bed that night, I heard something strange. It sounded like music, the most beautiful music I had ever heard.

It made me want to get up and go outside, to follow it all the way to its source. I wanted that more than I had ever wanted anything else in my entire life. But something made me think twice. There was a coldness in my heart and somehow, I knew if I opened my eyes, it would be the last of me. I lay there with my eyes screwed shut until morning broke and I finally felt the fear in my heart ease.

‘On Saturdays I was expected to help my mam around the house so I was too busy to think about the strange sounds I had heard in the night. But the next day, the second of November, was All Souls’ Day and when I was a girl the whole town would go to the cemetery and leave a candle on the grave of any family members who had passed. I saw Nancy’s family there, but there was no sign of her. When I asked where she was, her dad told me she was sick and resting at home.

‘The following week there was still no sign of Nancy and I thought she must be very sick indeed to miss school. Finally, almost two weeks after I had seen her last, she was back. I ran right over to say hello but stopped cold as soon as she looked at 41

THE BOOK OF SECRETS

me. The girl that stood before me looked exactly like my friend in almost every way, expect for her eyes. Her eyes, which had always been grey as a rock, were now moss green. I knew right then it was no longer Nancy I was looking at, but a stock.’

‘A what?’ asked Cat, confused by the term.

‘Surely I’ve told you about stocks?’

Cat shook her head.

‘My fault,’ said Granny with a sigh. ‘I’m getting forgetful in my ould age. I really should have warned you of such things before now. A stock is a kind of changeling, but where most changelings are either fairy babies or elders made to look like the human child they’re replacing, a stock is a creature made from wood or stone. It looks exactly like the real child, but it has no heart, no soul. It’s not really alive at all.’

Cat shuddered. She didn’t know which kind of changeling sounded worse. ‘And that’s what happened to Nancy?’

Granny nodded. ‘I’m almost sure of it. It was the way that thing looked at me. I could tell there was nothing going on inside its mind at all. It stared at me for a what felt like an age before it finally turned away. It never spoke a word to me, nor anyone else from what I can gather.

‘Afterwards, the thing that looked like Nancy started coming to school less and less until one day, I heard she had died. Not 42

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one bite of food nor sup of water had passed that creature’s lips since the day the real Nancy disappeared and over time it wasted away to almost nothing. Her poor parents were heartbroken of course, but as far as I know they never learned the truth that Nancy had followed the fairy music that Halloween night and had been taken away for good.

‘The next year I lived in fear that they would come back to take a few more of us away, but they never did. They were the Trooping Fairies, you see. They travel the length and breadth of the country holding their annual Revels. I never thought I would live to see the day when they would return to Clonbridge.’

It was fully dark when Granny finished her tale and Cat shivered.

‘Caitriona,’ Granny said, losing the faraway look in her eyes and grasping Cat by the shoulder with surprising intensity. ‘I need you to remember something important. The fairy Revels last from dusk on Halloween night until dawn the next morning. Once the sun peeks over the horizon, their power wanes and they slip away to the land of the Sídhe for another year.

You need to promise me that for the next few nights you’ll be extra careful. If you hear the fairy music, block your ears. If there’s a scratching at your window, don’t look out, and once 43

THE BOOK OF SECRETS

the sun has dipped below the horizon, under no circumstances should you set foot outside. Do you understand me?’

‘But Granny, I promised my friends we would go trick-ortreating tomorrow. Surely with that many people about they wouldn’t–’ ‘You will not leave this house!’ Granny snapped. ‘Promise me.’

Cat hesitated, she hated lying to Granny, but if it made her feel better …

‘I promise,’ she said.

Granny leaned back in the chair and sighed. ‘Good girl. Now, we better get the dinner started.’

Just like that, the dark cloud hovering over Granny seemed to lift and she was back to her old self. They went into the kitchen and began the ritual of making dinner.

‘There’s one thing I don’t understand,’ Cat said as she handed Granny a freshly peeled carrot.

‘What’s that, love?’

‘Well, you said the fairies that took Nancy were Trooping Fairies, right?’

‘I did.’

‘And they only stay in town long enough to hold their Revels?’

‘Yes.’ ‘So, what did you disturb that first day up in Cullane Wood?’

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Granny paused in the middle of chopping the vegetables and looked thoughtful. ‘You know, I’ve often wondered that myself.

I believe it was something older, a being that thrives on mischief and chaos. I think that day in the ringfort some cruel Pooka whispered lies into Nancy’s ear that caused her to return time and time again until one day, she never came back. Now, let’s speak no more of it.’

Outside, a light breeze picked up and the magpie who had been perched on the window ledge took flight, but neither Cat nor Granny noticed a thing.

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