The Switchers Trilogy Part 30

But she had, at least, that moment to act, and she did. The instant before the hound sprang she Switched into a blackbird and rose with a terrified chattering up through the branches and into the clear sky beyond. Once there she Switched again, and with sharp kestrel eyes she watched as the thin hound sloped off among the trees. As she hovered, still watching, her ears began to pick up a sound in the background that meant something. She was still shaken, and it was a moment or two before she could allow herself to let go of the fear of the chase and concentrate on the information. But the instant she did, a new shock went through her bloodstream. The sound was the hysterical yipping of a dog that had cornered its prey. Bran and Sceolan had found another victim.

CHAPTER SIX.

STILL IN THE FORM of a kestrel, Tess climbed the skies until she could get a clear view of the surrounding wasteland. She did not have to rise very high in order to see where the noise of the dogs was coming from. For a moment she hovered, taking in the scene. The old nanny goat, the one who had first approached her near the farm wall, was facing Bran and Sceolan, who, despite having run down their quarry, weren't about to tangle with those well-practised horns. What Tess couldn't understand, though, was why the old goat had chosen that spot to make her stand. The ground there was wide open, and there was no way the dogs could have cornered her. It didn't make sense.

Then she saw. The goat's kid, one of the smallest of them all, had fallen into a deep grike and was trapped there, suspended between the sheer walls. And at the same time that she saw him, Tess's sharp hawk-eyes saw something else. Neither the goat nor her kid were in any immediate danger from the dogs, but Tess was not the only person to have heard the frantic barks. Uncle Maurice had heard them too, and was crossing the fields with a swift stride. Over his left arm, open at the breach, was his shotgun.

Tess began to act without stopping to think. Somehow, she had to get there before him. In the blink of an eye she had flown to the edge of the woods, then she folded her wings and stooped, dropping like a stone towards the rocky ground below. The fall was breathtaking, a kind of death-dive, and if Tess hadn't learnt to trust the instincts of her animal forms she would have been terrified. But the bird's senses were more accurate than any computerised landing system and, at the last possible moment, she opened her wings and broke the fall. Ducking sideways, she swept into the shadowy edge of the trees before landing and Switching, all in one motion.

Then she was running, as fast as she dared on the dangerous going. She was glad of her trainers. At home in Dublin she had a pair of fas.h.i.+on shoes with huge, chunky heels, but as she sped across the rocks she promised herself she would never, ever wear them again. You never knew when you might need to run; to save your own life or someone else's.

She glanced towards the farmhouse as she went. As far as she could make out, she was roughly the same distance from the goats as Uncle Maurice was, but she was travelling faster and would almost certainly get there first. He lifted a hand and waved at her, calling out something that she didn't hear but could guess. She looked away, pretending that she hadn't seen him, and raced on. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that he was increasing his pace, and before long he was across the boundary wall and moving rapidly over the rough ground.

Tess ran all the harder. Now she could no longer avoid hearing her Uncle's shouts.

'Tess! Stay away now, do you hear? Leave them alone!'

She was nearly there. Sceolan ran up to greet her, proud of himself, but Bran stayed where she was, holding the old goat, who stood with her horns down like drawn swords.

'Tess!' It was more of a scream than a shout, and now Uncle Maurice was running, scrambling over the flaking and wobbling rocks towards her and the stranded goats. But Tess was there first. Her heart was pounding, because she was running and because she was afraid. She was flouting Uncle Maurice, she knew, but there was nothing else she could do. If she obeyed him, stood by and watched while he shot the goat and her kid, she would never be able to live with herself.

Bran backed off and the old nanny ran a few steps when Tess arrived on the spot. She ignored them both and went for the trapped kid. As she knelt and grabbed it by the scruff of the neck it let out a harrowing bawl of terror, but a moment later it was free and speeding off across the rocks with its mother close at its heels. A few yards away, Uncle Maurice came to a halt. He raised the gun, but Bran and Sceolan were both in his line of fire, bounding after the goats.

Tess called them off and by the time they returned, willingly enough after their long ordeal, the goats were at a safe distance. Uncle Maurice lowered the gun and stared at Tess in impotent fury. Then he shook his head angrily, turned on his heel and marched off the way he had come. Apologetically, the dogs took leave of Tess and followed him.

She could understand why Uncle Maurice hated the goats. They knocked down his walls and stole the gra.s.s he needed for the sheep when gra.s.s was at its scarcest. She knew, as well, how she must appear to him; an interfering townee full of sentimental misconceptions about country life. She watched as he made his way home, the dogs at his heels.

They were going back to their everyday lives. So were the goat and her kid, who were already far away, two dots on the grey landscape. Everyone had a place in the scheme of things. They knew what they were and they accepted it and got on with it.

But not Tess. She was not of either world; the animal or the human. With a heavy heart, she sat down on a slab of limestone and waited for the trembling in her limbs to subside. Her birthday loomed, more like a funeral than a celebration, an end instead of a beginning. She didn't know who she was or who she wanted to be. When she tried to think of her life stretching ahead of her, nothing came. There was no picture, no purpose. Nothing fitted. Like a reflection of her dark thoughts, the raven flew over again.

Tess stayed out for as long as she could, delaying the time when she would have to go back to the farm and face the music. She would have liked to have spent more time as a goat, but the sour taste of the morning's experience stayed with her and she felt too downhearted to do anything adventurous. She spent an hour or two exploring the bottomless grikes from the thrilling perspective of a mouse, but eventually hunger drove her homewards.

It was nearly mid-day. She found Aunt Deirdre and Orla podding a bucket of peas.

'Can I help?' she asked.

Orla avoided her eye and said nothing.

'Have you had breakfast yet?' said Aunt Deirdre. She didn't sound very friendly, either, and Tess realised that her uncle had probably given them all a report of her rebellious behaviour.

'Not yet,' she answered.

'You'd better get yourself something,' said Aunt Deirdre, but she still didn't look up from what she was doing.

Feeling more like an outcast than ever, Tess made tea and toast to the rhythmical snap and rattle of the peas.

'Will you have a cup?' she asked the others.

'I don't mind,' said Aunt Deirdre, and at last Orla looked up and nodded and then, before she looked away again, she winked. Tess felt better, knowing that she had at least one ally in the house.

Soon afterwards, Uncle Maurice and the boys came back with a trailer-load of turf for the range. Tess went out to help with the unloading, but her uncle walked straight past her as though she wasn't there. Behind him, Brian shrugged and grimaced and, in the pick-up, Colm shrugged and grimaced in imitation.

Tess went back indoors. She had intended to explain about Kevin coming and to make much of his character and his abilities, but there was no point in trying to do that now. She was in Uncle Maurice's bad books and there seemed, for the moment at least, to be no way out of them.

So, instead, she got out of the way and lay on her bed and read a book. Before long, Orla joined her.

'I'm sorry about this morning,' said Tess. 'I know it was mean. The truth is, I just wanted to be on my own.'

Orla nodded, suggesting a forgiveness that Tess didn't feel she deserved. 'I saw what you did,' she said.

A chill ran down Tess's spine; the ever-present fear of discovery.

'What did you see?' she asked.

'With the goat and the kid,' said Orla. 'I was watching. Daddy gets so mad with the goats when they come anywhere near the good land. I was sure he was going to shoot them, and then I saw you come running out of the woods.'

Her eyes were glowing as she remembered the scene and Tess suddenly felt like a hero instead of a criminal.

'I was so afraid you wouldn't get there first. I was jumping up and down and shouting.'

Orla was gazing at the ceiling as she spoke, still full of the pleasure of victory. But abruptly her face changed as another memory supplanted the first. 'Daddy was very cross.'

She said no more, leaving Tess to imagine the scenes on his return to the house. For a long time they stayed quiet. Orla's breathing seemed to be worsening again, or maybe it was just that, because of the stillness, Tess was made more aware of it. From outside came the regular clatter of sods of turf being thrown into the fuel-shed. Then Orla spoke again.

'My grandmother told me that one time when her father was a young man his dog put up an enchanted hare.' She paused, perhaps to see whether or not she had Tess's attention.

'How did he know it was enchanted?' said Tess.

Orla sat up, all eagerness now to tell the story. 'He didn't at first,' she said. 'His dog caught hold of her by the heel but, good and all as the dog was, he wasn't able to keep a hold of her and she kicked free.'

Tess leant up on her elbow, aware of a strange thing that was happening to her cousin. Although her voice was as weak and breathless as ever, it seemed to have taken on a different intonation, even a different dialect. It was as though, in entering the story, Orla had moved backwards in time to another age, when stories were one of the only forms of entertainment. Lizzie's reference to ancestors flitted across the surface of Tess's consciousness, then was gone again. As Orla went on, the flow of words was smooth and seamless.

'She was wounded, though, the hare, and it was easy enough for the dog to turn her away from the woods, which is where she wanted to go. On she ran, and it seemed there was no cover in the world for her except for Josie Devitt's house.'

Orla stood up and moved to the window as she spoke. 'It's gone now, that house, but it used to stand over there.' She pointed and Tess joined her at the window. 'On that bit of gra.s.sy land there, where there's a clearing in the rock.'

Tess nodded, and Orla continued. 'Well. It happened that Josie was out and about on the land at the time, but the half-door of his house was open on account of the weather being fine for the time of the year. So up and over went the hare when she came to the house; up and over the half-door and disappeared inside. But the thing was, when my great-grandfather opened the door to let the dog in after her, there was no hare there at all, but only an old woman, and her leg all cut and bleeding.'

Orla stopped, and Tess thought she was pausing again. 'Go on,' she said. 'What happened?'

Orla shrugged. 'That's the story,' she said. 'That's all of it.'

Tess leant back, disappointed somehow.

'Do you believe it?' Orla asked.

Tess was tempted to explain that it was impossible; that she knew for a fact that no one could change their shape after the age of fifteen, but she refrained. Instead she said: 'I don't know. The old people were full of stories like that, weren't they?'

But Orla surprised her. 'I don't care,' she said. 'I believe it. It was a fairy hare and that's why I was glad you rescued the goat and her kid. They might have been fairy goats.'

'Well they weren't,' said Tess, feeling like a killjoy. 'They were just ordinary goats.'

'How do you know?' asked Orla, a hint of pique in her voice.

'Because there's no such thing as fairies, that's why. They're just old stories. From a time when people ...'

'When people what?'

'When people were ... less sophisticated, that's all.'

Orla was silent for a moment. Then she said, 'More stupid. That's what you mean, isn't it?'

'No. Not really,' said Tess.

But it was.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

OUTSIDE, THE DOGS HUFFED and then barked in earnest, their voices trailing off around the side of the house. Tess jumped up and looked out of the window, but all she could see on that side of the house was Uncle Maurice straightening up from the turf pile and heading around to see who was there. Colm, still cradling a sod of turf, followed on behind.

'Who is it?' Orla asked.

Tess shrugged and went out to the landing, Orla close behind her. The window there was above the front door, but it was already too late. Whoever had come was directly below, now, and too close to the house to be seen.

There was a knock at the door. Tess stood at the top of the stairs and listened as Aunt Deirdre answered it. She hoped that it wouldn't be Kevin. Not yet.

But it was. Tess knew it even before he spoke, by the length of the silence while he waited for Aunt Deirdre to say that she had been expecting him. When, instead, she said, 'Well? What can I do for you?' Tess heard him stammer into life.

'Oh ... Oh, well ... em ... I was wondering ...'

'What were you wondering?'

Tess cringed. She knew she ought to try to rescue the situation and she was on the point of going down when Uncle Maurice came around the side of the house and took over the proceedings from his wife.

'What's going on?'

There was no way, now, that Tess could help. She closed her eyes and crossed her fingers.

But Kevin was thinking on his feet. 'I was wondering,' he said, 'whether you might be having a problem with rats? There's a lot of them about this year.'

'Are you from Pestokill?' said Uncle Maurice.

'No. I work for myself.'

'Oh yeah? And whose rats have you got rid of so far?'

'Oh, loads,' said Kevin, vaguely. 'Mostly in Dublin. I thought I might be more use down the country.'

There was a silence and Tess could imagine Uncle Maurice examining Kevin, weighing him up.

'Where's your gear, then?' he asked.

'On my bike.'

There was another long silence, and Tess felt she could almost hear her uncle's mind, calculating away. She knew what the next question would be before it came.

'How much?'

Kevin didn't hesitate. He had already discussed it with Tess over the phone. 'A hundred quid. Results guaranteed.'

There was another silence from Uncle Maurice, but it was shorter this time.

'How long will it take?'

'Not long,' said Kevin. 'I have a special technique. If you take me on, you'll have no rats here tonight.'

'And how will I know if they're gone?' he asked.

'How do you know you've got them?'

'Hmm,' said Uncle Maurice. 'Smart, aren't you? I'll tell you what. I'll give you a chance, all right? No money up front, though. I'm not thick. But if all the rats are gone from the house and buildings by this time tomorrow, you'll have your hundred quid. How does that sound?'

'Sounds fine,' said Kevin. 'I'll start now, if that's all right with you?'

'Fine by me. What do you need?'

'Just for you to put the dogs away. I'll do the rest.'

Tess turned back to the window and watched as Kevin scrunched across the gravel to where his bike was leaning against the wall. She noticed that the white cat had appeared again and was sitting on a low branch of the apple tree beside the feed-shed.

Kevin began to rummage in a small, dingy rucksack. At the corner of the house Colm, still clutching the sod of turf, stood staring at him, open-mouthed. Kevin winked at him and pulled out the thing he had been looking for. It was a small tin whistle.