4499 words (17 minute read)

XXVIII: yes, and back again

They drop Brighid off at the emergency room with Duyen, where Aine and Alima both get a tube of acorn lotion for their Folk burns. Jude takes Bulan to the vet where he’ll meet up with Lucy, and finally Alima and Aine head to the car shop.

Going by the look on Toby and Henry’s faces, the car is totaled--not that anyone expected otherwise. “Christ, you two, what happened to this?” Toby asks.

“We tried to call the Fianna for help, but the Hunt was already on us and so we had to try and shake them off,” Aine says. “I rammed some of the horses.”

“She drove right into the fucking mob!” Alima corrects.

“But since there’s about a hundred of those fuckers, they still managed to pelt us with a mountain of elf-shot,” Aine says after Henry high-fives her. “Which is why Brighid is in the hospital.”

“Ach.” He winces.

“Why doesn’t the horse blood burn things?” Alima wonders about the brownish stains. “I mean, I’m glad my car isn’t an engine with tires right now, but still.”

“Fairy-horses aren’t too different from mortal ones,” says the shop owner. “We think they are because of this shit here--” he pats the car, “but the Folk can spend a century doing nothing but breed horses and for them, it’s about the length of a longer apprenticeship.”

So Alima sighs and calls her insurance while Aine calls Harry to pick them up.

---

In the hospital, Brighid runs through the questions with Dr. Farthing-Wu, takes some more aspirin before dinner, winces a bit once she’s hooked to the IV for morphine, and gets a magic scan for any obsidian shards left in her heart.

“Only four pieces, and they’re small ones,” he congratulates after the spell’s finished. “Good job getting the arrowhead out.”

“Alima did it,” she says.

He waves it off. “Got it out. That’s the important part. Horace’s going to get the little bits out tomorrow.” He pats her shoulder and leaves.

---

At the vet, Lucy sorts out the paperwork while the nurses put a healing spell on Ned, gets a couple bottles of pain medication, and calls Alima’s pet insurance. It covers about 40% of the cost, so that means they need to pay about two hundred and forty euros.

“Also, didn’t Bulan get thrown into a tree?” The doctor asks. “Why is he not crushed?”

“A goddess was there,” Duyen answers.

A tsk of assent is the only response. So they wait for Alima to pick them up with the rental car, and Ned limps into the backseat to pillow his head on Lucy’s leg.

“Idiot,” Lucy tells Ned with a scratch behind his ear. “You’re a dog, not suicidal. Going after fairies in the middle of--”

“Are you talking to Bulan, Mom?” Alima wonders from the front of the car.

“He’s on a healing spell, so that means I can be mad at him.”

“Poor boy.” Jude chuckles and pats Ned’s shoulder, then jerks at a shock. “Ow!” He grips his temples and opens his eyes cautiously. With the static filling his head, he can barely see the dog: Instead there’s a man-shaped figure, wavering on Lucy’s side of the backseat.

“What’s up?” Alima wonders.

“Magic shock. Don’t worry--it happens sometimes with my second-sight,” Jude assures.

“From the hospital?”

“There’s probably some residue from the Hunter.” He rubs his forehead. “God, it looks like there’s a guy in the car.”

“No--hey! That’s me!” Ned barks. “Blondie! If you can see me--”

“Bulan, quiet.” Alima puts her signal on for a turn.

Ned whines. “Blondie, it’s me! Ned Song!”

“Nothat’scanseeNedSong,” Jude garbles out, and he screws his eyes shut.

“Did you say Dad’s name?!” Alima asks.

“Fairy-magic,” Jude shakes his head. “Don’t mind me for a minute.”

“No! Alima! MIND THE TRACKER!” Ned tries to get closer to him, but his ribs protest and all he can manage is another whine.

“Don’t worry, boy, you’ll be home soon,” Alima tells him.

---
October 26.

Ned feels a lot better in the morning, but most of his energy’s left with the pain. He lies on his good side after Alima lets him out, and he grumbles when Lucy laughs at him. “I have five days to kill the Hunter,” Ned tells Lucy. “Don’t fucking laugh.

“Because your first attempt was a record success,” Lucy rolls her eyes. “Ned, dogs your size aren’t things to mess with, but you’re not supposed to be a dog.”

“Technically I’m a wolf.”

“I know, honey. Part husky, part wolf--”

“No, I’m not a dog at all,” Ned explains. “Persephone said the curse is screwing up how people see me.”

“Didn’t Alima get lab results for you, though?! It said you were a quarter wolf!”

“The test was done by a living person, and I’m guessing the results were fucked up by the curse.” Ned digs his face into the edge of the couch. “God, European fairies are crazy.”

“Hey, Alima!” Maidin appears by the altar and waves her over, with a small dark thing in the crook of his arm. “I found him in my river but I need to talk to my clan soon, so can you just dry him off and have him checked at the vet or something?”

“Can you say that a little slower, because--” Alima comes closer to find that Maidin’s holding a sopping wet cat. “Oh my god! Why was a cat in the river?!”

“Don’t worry, no animal abuse!” Maidin hands him over. “He was wandering around and he slipped and fell in--probably a stray. The town’s cats don’t go outside of the walls.”

“I… okay?” Alima crosses to the bathroom and wraps the cat in a towel, then gets her bag from the room. “Mom, I’m getting some cat food--I’ll be back soon.”

“No problem.” Lucy starts drying the cat off after Alima shuts the door. “Why does this have to happen right after they get attacked by fairies?”

“Oh no! Was it the Wild Hunt?” Maidin crosses to where Ned is lying, leaving a trail of wet footprints. “Well, I don’t want to assume anything, but if someone out in the country says ‘fairies,’ they usually mean ‘Wild Hunt--’”

“The hell can a ditz like you get inside the walls?” Ned growls in irritation. “Ogma said it’s supposed to be hard for fairies!”

“Everyone says that!” Maidin laughs. “I come in through the levees. Why am I gonna waste time shoving through giant walls? I guess since the Hunter wears that deer skull all the time, the testosterone-poisoning probably rubs off on him…”

At first Ned has the feeling that Maidin’s basic-ass answer means he’s the fairy version of an Average Joe--but in the next moment, he realizes the river-spirit’s exactly as powerful as Ned thought. Water takes the path of least resistance, after all.

“Wait! Maidin, you can hear him?!” Lucy demands. “He’s Ned!”

“Who?”

“Ned Song! My husband!”

Cursed, the shieling rumbles in assent.

“Fucking hell, mate, they’ve been looking for you for months!” Maidin gives Ned’s shoulder a testing poke. “Yeah, I won’t be able to talk to humans about you. Not living ones, anyway. I don’t really do curses, more like direct protection--once someone’s actually gotten cursed, I’m mostly stuck with keeping them alive and with all their limbs until they manage to break it or someone else does.”

“Everyone knows someone who can only fix one part of this shit!” Ned snarls. “Why is Ireland so specialized?!”

“It’s not that we’re specialized, it’s that the Hunter is,” Maidin says. “Hunting is what he’s supposed to do! We can’t just make him stop! Well, we could make him stop hunting specific people, but that only means replacing them with other people. And yeah, he’s a criminal, but with most magic, ‘kill a capital-F Force of Nature’ doesn’t distinguish between whether you’re an oathbreaker or someone law-abiding. If we tell the Horned Hunter to actually stop hunting, it qualifies as ‘upsetting the balance of nature’ and then he can go, ‘why do you care, mate? Time to shoot up travelers on the highway because you forced me to go against my nature.’”

“Does he not understand basic decency?!” Lucy demands.

“No!”

The cat meows and huddles into Ned’s fur. “This is a mess you’re in,” he says in the crackly voice of a teenager. “When’s Alima coming back with food?”

“Maybe ten more minutes.” Ned sniffs at the cat’s fur. “So, Maidin? I made an oath to kill the Hunter a while ago. Would I become the new Hunter because of this?”

“No, no, you’re human,” Maidin assures. “There might be spillover on powers or his other titles, but with Forces of Nature, you have to be a fairy or half-fairy, or some sort of spirit. There’ll be a gap for a while once he’s dead, but there’s gaps sometimes. See, humans are awesome hunters in the literal sense, but being the Hunter isn’t just a job. You give up your name to wear the mask. You become a Predator that hunts Prey. That is all you are from that point on, and that is all you will be until something kills you. The Folk, we like names because they’re easy to remember--but we don’t need them like humans do. You, Ned, you have about ten names. Ned Song, Bulan, Dad, Uncle, and that’s just in English--”

“‘Dad’ is a name?” Ned wonders, ears pricking in amusement.

“See? You guys don’t even know it!” Maidin laughs. “I like being Maidin, but I’ve also just been the River, or He Lives in the River, or the Man Who’s Always Wet. An Abhainn. Tá sé ina chónaí san abhainn. An fear a gcónaí fliuch. If I killed the Hunter and wore the mask, I’d still be the River, the Man Who’s Always Wet--that’s what I am. I’d still be the gabby river-spirit. But I cannot be called Maidin. I could not respond to a name that someone gave me while I wear the deer-mask. There are lots of bendy parts in that rule, but… Sorry, does this make sense?”

“Sort of?” Lucy tries. “People can change names or lose them for a while, but giving it up completely? It’s weird. All those things you mentioned sound like titles.”

“I figured,” Maidin shrugs it off. “So. If a human tried to wear the deer-mask, it’d be like… It wouldn’t be illegal. Nature doesn’t care about legal or illegal, that’s for us. On the plus side, all we’d need to do is kill them and replace them with an actual spirit. Anyway, a human as a Force of Nature--it’s like those old movies where white people dressed up like Native Americans or Asians or black people. Like, that shit looks off, and I’m so glad they stopped--”

Ned snorts, while Lucy tries not to laugh--clearly, Maidin hasn’t heard about the latest media disasters where white people were still dressing up like minorities. (Or maybe he’s getting to that part in the next hour of talking.)

“Maidin, don’t you have to meet with your family?” Lucy realizes.

“Oh, yay, I’ll be on time!” Maidin ruffles the cat’s fur. “Don’t worry, mate! The Songs will have you sorted out quick!” And the river-boy leaves in a swirl of water droplets.

Ned doesn’t mind, but the spotted cat shivers at the pings of damp on his just-dried fur. “Do you have a name?” Ned wonders with a sniff at the cat’s ear.

“Before this life, I did,” he offers, “but right now, I’m just the cat who lives by the pines.”

“Do you remember anything?” Ned’s not expecting much of an answer, but the next words make him jolt:

“‘Like… the gemstone,’” the cat strains to remember. “Were those the blue things? That’s it, sorry. Mam didn’t teach us much magic--she was mostly making sure we didn’t die, but now it’s just me and her. Lovely joke.” He starts licking a hind paw. “I can portal and do the basics. Really, though, what else do we need?”

“We can come get your mom if you want,” Ned offers.

“Nah, but thanks--she’ll show up in a couple hours once she figures out where I am. She used to be a housecat, so she knows a lot of stuff that the street cats don’t.”

Ned feels worse hearing about this than if she were born feral. Does his mother have a name? He wonders. “What happened to her owner?”

“He died.” The cat attempts to knead the floor from reflex, then winces. “Ewww, it’s rock.”

Ned pants in amusement. “You’ve been sitting on the floor!

I know! But sometimes when you get the kneading urge, you can’t just tell yourself ‘this shit is rock, move somewhere else,’” the cat explains. “It’s warm.”

Ned gets up and grabs the towel hanging off the edge of the chair, then comes back and drops it in front of the cat. “Here’s a towel.”

“A what?”

“Uh… the soft thing that Lucy dried you off with.” He nudges it closer.

“Ned, I only heard your half of the conversation, but are you thinking of bringing in more cats?” Lucy asks. “I remember when we adopted Ruby, you know.”

“He’s a teenager and his mom is looking for him,” Ned says. “This is important.”

“Oh, so your dad-instinct and your cat-love are going off.” Lucy sits down near them and inspects the cat. “I didn’t know he was only a year old. I thought he was just skinny.”

“Probably young and skinny,” Ned muses.

“We can’t all be muscle-y giants like you,” the cat says, but he’s kneading the towel with a vengeance and he’s already starting to drool a bit. “But you’re not supposed to be a wolf, so I’m not sure if you count.” The last few words are slurred together.

“I miss watching cats do stuff!” Lucy chuckles. “Oh, but I cancelled the advertisement on the house last week. Whenever you get found, we’re gonna go back to the States.”

“We can adopt a kitten,” Ned offers immediately. “They’re soft and they fit in your pocket.”

“Don’t tempt me, Ned,” she says, but he catches her fighting off a grin.

“Or we can get two cats,” Ned’s tail starts wagging. “One’s the responsible ‘needs a home, already neutered, and chill’ adult cat, and then the other can be a kitten where we don’t know what the fuck’s going on.”

“Hang on, Ned?” Lucy realizes. “Did you get neutered?”

“N…no?” Ned says. “I’d remember if I blacked out, woke up with missing parts, and spent a month or two healing up. Maybe the spell makes people think I got neutered already.”

“So… you’re an intact, eight-thousand-pound wolf,” Lucy points out as she sits by the couch. “And people trusted our five-foot-tall daughter to handle you by herself for months.

“Even without the spell screwing with people’s heads, dogs can be trained.

“Yeah, but you’re like a truck!”

“You’re a softie, that’s what,” says the cat, hoarse from sleepiness, and he digs into Ned’s fur. “I wonder what it’s like in America. You and Lucy both smell like it. Alima smells like it because she’s your daughter, but not as much now.”

“Does America have a literal scent, or is it more like a combination of smells?”

“I’m tired,” the cat declares. “The soil’s different from Ireland. Don’t worry about it.” With that, he trades off ignoring Ned with sleeping until Alima comes back with a few tins of cat food.

-----

The spotted cat is fed without much ado, though he drags his towel to a corner and shies away from being petted. In the evening when the rest of them are eating, his marbled-tabby mother comes in a swirl of purple cat-magic and concerned yowling.

“Uh-oh. Is this your sister, man?” Alima keeps a distance.

“The river-boy said you fell in!” The tabby immediately starts licking between her son’s ears. “I could barely figure out where you were until he finally came back to tell me!”

“I’m fine, Mam, I was just cold and wet for a while.”

“I wish he wasn’t so daft half the time, but there’s really no helping the snaky parts of the--” She stops and looks at Ned. Her back arches and Ned feels his hackles rising in defense, but then she squelches her hiss. “Oh, I’m sorry! I thought you were a wolf!”

“He’s a softie, Mam, don’t worry.” The spotted cat purrs and nuzzles her.

“I know dogs aren’t all bad, but when you spend a year watching kittens on your own, it’s hard not to feel like the big ones are gonna eat you.” She jumps onto the couch and watches him, tail puffed but otherwise sheepish. Something about how she jumps seems off to Ned, but he can’t pin it down.

“That’s fine.” Ned walks up slowly and sniffs about a foot away from her. She moves away, but only to get distance. “Do you have a name?”

“Oh, did he tell you about my tragic fall into homelessness?” She peers at him. “Dandelion.”

“You used to be a housecat,” Alima remarks sadly, stretching a hand out. “You’re too nice.”

“You’re not old enough to talk about that.” She purrs as Alima scratches an ear. “I didn’t get through two years in the forest being too nice.

---
October 27.

The cats are taken to the clinic after they eat, bathed by the nurses (Alima is eternally grateful that she’s not doing it), microchipped, and given their shots and flea treatments. She’s loaned two crates and two collars with tethering spells. Thanks to Laurie knowing animal-speech, they found out that the marbled cat’s name is Dandelion and she’s probably three or four, but her son has no name.

“We’ll need a couple of weeks to find out about any internal problems and two or three months to put on enough weight to get spayed and neutered,” says the vet, “but aside from Dandelion’s bad leg, it looks like they’re fine.”

“It figures after you move out of the house and buy a tiny cottage, that’s when you start racking up wildlife,” Lucy jokes as they head to the car. “Giant dog, two cats…”

“I’m just fostering them.” Alima takes the spotted cat’s crate while Lucy takes Dandelion’s.

“Fostering is shorthand for ‘until I can officially keep them,’” Lucy finishes, grinning.

---

They keep the cats in the lean-to’s room since it’s the smallest and easiest to clean in case of accidents (or if the spotted cat starts spraying).

Ned lies next to the closed door and sniffs at where Dandelion sits on the other side. “Your son used to be our old cat.”

“He did? No wonder he kept wandering by the walls,” she says. “I haven’t had time to teach him much magic. He remembers pieces, but it’s more instinctive.”

“Hello, Bulan!” Alima rubs his head. “Are you lonely?” She cracks open the door: Dandelion is startled but calms down, while her son hisses and retreats to his crate. “Someone doesn’t like the vet, does he?”

“No shit! You try having people manhandle you and stick you with sharp things!”

“Look who’s being soft now,” Dandelion notes, amused. “I have a bad leg, and you’re yowling about a few pinpricks?”

“Maybe you’re fine with it, but I’m not!” A rustle of blanket inside the crate. “Just let me know if there’s food.”

Dandelion creeps up tentatively to Alima. “Don’t mind him, love, he’ll cool off in a few hours.”

“She can’t understand you,” Ned reminds her.

“Not with words.” Dandelion circles Alima a few times before finally sniffing at Alima’s jeans. “Och, what am I gonna do? We normally spend a few hours hunting.” She roams the room for a couple minutes, then decides on the classic cat solution: Sleeping in her crate.

---

Brighid is… not sent home with her dad and Aunt Christine that morning. She has to stay for another two or three days. She’s not surprised, but Fergal’s pretty annoyed.

“We know Brighid’s a bloody nurse, but it’s protocol,” June says. “And for all we know, there’s a curse that we didn’t catch because it depended on Brighid going back home or something. We want to make sure she’s stable in case complications happen.”

“All right,” he concedes with a rub at his temple. “Barley, I’ll see you again at about six. Owen’s bringing your phone’s charger.”

“‘Barley?!’” June grins. “Oh god, tell me how that happened!”

“When she started learning to read, she got confused about how her name was spelled and then it kept coming out Bar-leed,” Fergal supplies immediately.

“How did you get an L into ‘Brighid’?!”

“I don’t know!” Brighid flushes. “I was four!”

---

An hour or two after lunch comes Owen with her charger, as Fergus said. His hair is still lopsided, but most of the scar is covered again, and it smolders against the hospital’s paleness. For a minute she sees the mountain of elf-shot barreling towards Alima’s car.

“Did I scare you?” He makes sure not to come inside as she cringes.

“No--it’s not you,” she fumbles. “It’s just the elf-shot. Makes me jumpy.”

“Alima’s got shit luck with cars,” he eases into the room and then the conversation. “Or maybe it’s because the Hunter’s after her instead of some random idiot.”

“Owen, is anyone talking about me yet?”

“You got hit with elf-shot, Aine and Alima got Folk blood all over them, and even Alima’s damn dog got beat up, so I’d say people are talking,” he says, but Brighid shakes her head.

“I mean--” She remembers there’s a camera by the door and she presses her lips shut.

“Did they do anything else to you?” Owen sits down with a scrape of the chair legs.

“No, I’m fine besides the heart attack!”

“Brighid, you’re blonde! The Folk like blondes!” Owen presses on, knuckles white on the bed’s rail. “What am I supposed to think when my female friend was chased by a bunch of fairies for half a fucking hour, and she’s the most harmless thing in Cloncarrig besides an actual kitten, and she’s not talking about something?!”

“Owen, I didn’t get assaulted! I swear!” Brighid tries to steer the conversation back on course, but the Wallflowers rhyme drifts into her ear again. “And I can’t have been gone for that long. The Folk were singing Wallflowers, that’s only a minute--”

“Either they shunted you farther into the woods than you thought, or they just played football with time. Whatever.” Owen brushes it off. “The others found you after half an hour and you were babbling about how you didn’t want me telling people something. What. Did. They. Do?

“They know what I told you.” It squeezes out of her mouth, and wet things drip onto her hospital gown. “Owen, you can’t tell anyone, please--”

“I know.” He tucks her under one arm. “I haven’t.”

“What if the Hunt tells people instead?”

“Well, then I’ll kill the bastards.”

She knows the Folk don’t have sexuality quite like humans do--Maidin’s known since her parents separated, and he’s so confused about why. It’s probably just Maidin--she brings an offering to Lough Dearg’s guardian when she visits her cousins, and Dearg can wrap her head around it a lot better than Cloncarrig’s motor-mouth. But she’s also so serious--

“Your head is all over the place,” Owen muses, and Brighid jolts.

“Don’t show off with your telepathy right now!”

“Didn’t have to,” he retorts, but he tightens his grip on her. “You got that look on your face.”

“Oh.”

Why on earth would Maidin want to date someone as prickly as Owen? Brighid wonders. But maybe his Folk-sight sees the little boy who tugged Brighid to the river when she skinned her elbow. Or the half-frozen teen getting stitched up in Brighid’s lap.

---

“Tomorrow,” Richard Bray pleads. “Tomorrow, Matthaeus, you can’t go out while the Knights are--”

“Let me up,” Owen says. Mal holds him still, but Brighid nearly drops the needle. “Let me up.” He staggers over to Richard, with the needle a dangling flash in his hair.

“Owen, sit down for thirty more seconds--”

“I’ll make him stay home,” he creaks out. “I swear it.”

The Brays’ house gives a little shudder, but the other humans can’t feel any magic--not from an old-walker. Richard looks down at the floorboards before he hands the phone over.

“Teis?” Owen asks. “I’m okay. Brighid took care of the serious parts.” The frantic slurry of Matthaeus’ response. “I’m okay,” he says again. “Don’t leave home until I call you. All right?” A few soft hitches from the phone: The giveaway noise of crying. “I love you.”

The Brays’ house jolts again at those words, with an additional quivering moan before it settles back down. The old-walkers are a strange, proud people, but it’d be easier to brush off Owen’s talk if he didn’t make the ground shake with it.

“I love you,” he tells him, almost a whisper. Brighid latches onto Mal, but nothing happens as Owen hangs up and shuffles back over to the couch.

---

The present-day Owen is warm, but just as tired.

“I wish I was an old-walker,” Brighid says. “I wanted to be when I was little.”

“No you didn’t.” He smiles, but it’s bitter. “You wanted to be a princess. Old-walkers were just convenient.”

“But then I wouldn’t care what people think,” she argues into his shoulder. “Like you.”

“The Old Way’s a religion, not a hive-mind,” Owen scoffs gently. “The only difference is you’d believe in more gods.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He shifts the IV cord out of the way. “You’d be the same harmless nurse you are now.”

“That…” She sniffles as the disappointment caves into her chest. “That’s stupid.”

“That’s people,” Owen corrects.

And he stays with her for another hour.

Next Chapter: XXIX: the bear went over the mountain