1415 words (5 minute read)

III: yes

There are a pair of antlers on the living room wall, but when Ogma asks if they are like the pair on the Hunter’s skull, she realizes they are too thin and blade-like. They aren’t wide enough across, either, even though they could fit Alima between them.

So he takes her down to the basement, where two fans of bone stretch like wings over the washing machine. They are the size of her car with roots as wide as her forearms, and how the light falls, they cast no shadow below them.

She stops dead. "Yes," she whispers. "Those."

"The elk’s skull. He means business, then." He tugs at her shoulder before heading back up. "Don’t come down here too often. You’ll work yourself in knots."

She is all too happy to follow him. "Does he do this to many people?"

"Often enough," he replies, and clicks the light off.

Ogma’s wife Marian is still mostly blonde, although her hair is ashier than the shade in her wedding pictures. She does not have to ask why Ogma has brought one of his lodgers here, nor why Alima can’t stomach the thought of lunch, and is kind but neutral until Alima’s finally relaxed at dinner.

"If it weren’t so damn cold, I’d ask if you wanted to eat in the garden," she regrets as she brings out the chicken. "My moonflowers are blooming, and they’re a sight when it’s dark."

She is about to cut a few slices off, but Marian waves her away.

"Not from a guest, girlie." She carves off two pieces of the back, with both oysters intact, and puts them on a plate. "I have to keep them in a pot, though--just as bad as raspberries. Ooh, you can see a few from the window!" She motions right, and Alima heads over. "Two or three hours and they’ll be open."

"Really?" Pale green spirals rest on a trellis of heart-shaped leaves. The biggest are already dipped in white, and she watches a moment before noting to check again later.

Marian sighs. "I wish this wasn’t because of the Folk, but oh well." She cuts a slice from a quarter of dark bread and holds it out to Alima, pleasantries gone. "You are a guest in this house. Our door is unbarred to you and yours, your troubles and wishes as our own."

The wood of the floor hums in sleepy response, and Marian stamps it fondly. "Come off it, you. Getting senile already."

"How old is it?" Alima asks as she butters her bread. She waits a minute to let the butter soften, and when she takes a bite, chunks of hazelnut crunch in her teeth.

"Older than you," Marian says, lightly but not as a joke.

Later that evening, she puts her peacoat on and takes a walk in the garden. The raspberry trough has bare canes and a few spindly, late leaves, the apple tree is a calm knotty mass, and the oak in the center is black and bare like the hazels. Camellias gleam red and lush.

The moonflowers are open now; soft white lanterns the size of her hands, that sail in the wind through the dark.

"What happened? To your parents?" she remembers asking Malachy.

"What happened to yours?"

She holds herself a moment, then steals back inside.

---
Ogma’s daughter-in-law Ita helps with laundry on Tuesdays, and she refuses to let Alima help, at least past sorting her clothes out. "Once your citizenship’s done, you can help--"

"I need to live here five years before I even apply!"

"--but even without being a tourist, you’re still a guest," Ita finishes, and that’s the end of it.

Alima heads to the garden with Ita’s youngest daughter May. May is eight years old, has red bouncy curls that are quite distinct from her mother’s sleek auburn sheet, and has a kitten named King Brian. He is one of the few cats who doesn’t much like fish, but he enjoys bits of bacon when May’s parents aren’t looking.

"And my name’s not May the month, it’s May the flower!" She explains, and points to the stand of hawthorns in the sunniest corner. "Sometimes the flowers are white like snow, but sometimes they’re pink!"

"Is it so?" She tries to find a place where she can feel its trunk, but the branches are thickly woven and thorny. "I’ll have to wait to see, then."

So they wander around making daisy chains. It’s been twelve years since Alima made one, but she only wrecks six or seven daisies before remembering the finer points. They work the daisy chains into bracelets and crowns; May declares herself the Princess of Cloncarrig, flitting around happily before she notices that Alima’s hair is still in its Dutch braid. "Alima, you can’t be a princess without nice hair!"

"I’m not a princess, I’m a warrior queen," Alima returns. "We can’t trip on our hair when we’re running around fighting."

"Right!" May starts weaving leftover daisies into Alima’s braid, but then she runs into another problem. "Oh, no! You can’t be a warrior queen without a sword!"

Alima sighs (and hides her laugh) before looking around for a good branch. "All right, I’ll see if--"

"Gotcha!" A shape drops out of the hawthorn, to Alima’s shriek. "That’s two for this week!"

Alima takes a few deep breaths and struggles back onto her feet; the young man is about her age, broad-shouldered with long black hair. "Who are you?"

"Owen!" May jumps on him and calls him her steed, but then realizes where he was hiding. "Wait, Owen, you’re not supposed to play on the hawthorn! Quick, go say sorry!"

"I was not on the hawthorn, little sister," he says. His voice is rich and old, like the stones of Moher Tower. "I was on the fence behind the hawthorn."

"Ohhhh," May realizes, and resumes using him as a horse.

"Someone screamed, what’d you do?" Ita comes out, irritated. (And still holding the drying sheet.)

"We thought Owen was climbing the hawthorn when he jumped at us, but he was only on the fence behind it, Mum!" May tells her, and yelps when Owen turns. "Too fast, too fast!"

"Ow--ow! Hair, May! We talked about this!" He untangles her fingers.

"Oh, no trouble then." Ita waves and heads back inside. "Don’t scare the new one too much, love! She’s one of your granddad’s!"

"I won’t, Mum," he calls back.

Once May is tired (though Owen is unfazed), he sends her inside for a snack and pats a spot on the bench for Alima. "I saw you coming," he remarks as she sits.

"Um... yes?" She feels like she’d remember someone who cuts such a striking figure. "I’m sorry, I don’t remember seeing you."

"You wouldn’t." He grins, then returns to the topic. "Anyway. It’s been five years since Malachy Bray let anyone stay at his house."

"Since his parents died?" She asks, and he shakes his head.

"His parents died three years ago, birdy-bird."

"Birdy-bird?"

He looks like a fox when he smiles. "You all but flew away after I jumped at you."

"So who was the last person he let stay?"

Owen looks a bit confused as he sorts out her grammar--it still happens now and then. She couldn’t talk after her parents vanished, but it wasn’t just from grief; the doctors found strange magic clinging to her throat, and it took two weeks to get it loose. She wouldn’t be surprised if bits of it are still there.

"I was," he says after a moment. "Mal was eighteen, I’d just turned twenty. Worst birthday ever."

She knows not to ask too much, but she still wonders. "What happened?"

He looks right into her face. His eyes are dark like hers, but they burrow into her own like a creature on the hunt. After he’s found whatever he’s looking for, he nods to himself and picks a leaf out of her braid. "Talk to Aine; she won’t fuck it up or scare you."

"What about asking Malachy?"

"You’d need to ask about his parents first," he tells her. "And even I don’t know."

Next Chapter: IV: no