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‘If you ever meet a fairy on the road, be sure to move out of their way and be polite. You’ll know them by their red hair and their green eyes. They’ll grant any human three wishes, so be sure to ask them for yours, and if you’ve been good to them, they’ll grant the three wishes freely, and if you’ve been bad to them, they’ll twist your wish and grant it quair. So never forget to put out the cakes and milk.’

Kathleen McNeal of the Glen

PROLOGUE

Outside her nest, she could hear the scuttle of rats and the scratchy creep of cockroaches, and the fine whirr of a spider’s spinning. But she couldn’t hear the heavy step of her mother returning with tasty food for her ‘precious daughter’.

After a while, made bold by hunger, the little girl uncurled herself and crawled out of her nest of broken bones and away down a dark, slippery, rocky tunnel.

The little girl was not a pretty child. She was a pooka, one of the darkest creatures of the fairy world – two metres long from nose to rump, and covered in thick black oily fur. Her eyes burned on either side of her blunt muzzle, and she had twisted yellow horns and wrinkled, clawed hands like turkey’s feet, and when she opened her snout to bleat for her mother, she had no tongue – only row after row of thin triangular teeth, crammed top and bottom of her mouth, as far back as her soft frog-like throat.

Coming on the spider in its web, the little girl popped it into her mouth and sucked it like a soft-centred sweet. The cockroaches had harder skins, but she used her cheese-grater teeth to grind them into a tasty paste. A rat cringed against the wall in terror; she ripped off its skull like popping the cap off a bottle, and – tilting back her head – squirted its hot blood and guts straight down her throat, discarding its empty body.

The tunnel came out into a narrow stairway. Stone steps covered in slimy moss led steeply up or steeply down. Following the stench of her mother’s sweat and drool, the little girl slithered downwards.

After a while a shining emerald mist filled the tunnel. Creeping under a low archway, she found herself in a vast cavern through which a lime-green river ran. The sight of the water almost sent her scurrying back to her nest – because water is death to pookas. And yet her mother’s scent-trail drew her on. Not far into the cavern, creeping through the mist, she picked up another scent – strong, meaty, tender – which made her tummy rumble again.

Yet at the river’s edge the human scent ran out and only her mother’s continued on, tracing a dangerous route along the edge of the water. The young pooka followed the trail, whimpering with unease, until the river flowed out of the cavern under a rocky shelf. For several minutes she snuffled around, puzzling.

Until she saw her mother. Or rather, what was left of her. A black rotting island, floating damply on the surface of the water. Clumps of wiry hair; gobbets of still-melting flesh; one pathetically raised claw. For a long disbelieving moment the pooka stared. Then, with a desolate whimper, she crept to the very edge of the water, stretching out a black and hairy arm, ready to fondle the very last remnants of her loving, protective, beautiful parent …

A ripple surged through the water, as from the wake of a departing boat, and rocked her mother’s disappearing body. The wavelet splashed the little girl’s hand, burning into her flesh like acid. In pain and shock, she turned and ran. Not remembering the way she came, she squeezed out under the wrong archway and rushed up a very different set of steps.

Where was the safety of her nest? Her mother was dead, and she couldn’t find her way home! Her mother was dead. The little girl’s heart pulsed with a terrible grief. She raced wildly along tunnel after tunnel. Up and down a labyrinth of stairways, all leading nowhere. Until, in a dark, dim corner curtained by cobwebs, she collapsed and slept, exhausted.

Then woke and carried on, until on another far-flung stairway a terrifying smell assailed her nostrils …

Trembling, the young pooka snuffed around in the stairwell, fighting down her nausea. The revolting smell was everywhere – the human might have gone in either direction, up or down. But after much thought the pooka turned upwards. Her mother had told her that that was where humans lived, in a beautiful mysterious world far above, full of light and heavenly music. And when she found that girl, first she would murder every single one of the girl’s loved ones and then she would kill the human girl herself.

Finally the stairs came to an abrupt end in a cramped stone box. Cold air and light streamed in through narrow cracks around a square panel of wood. The pooka crouched, blinking and shivering.

The scent of her mother’s murderer was weaker here, as if faded by time. Hoping she’d come the right way, the little girl curled up and slept again. And hours later she was woken by a very beautiful, heavenly sound, like nothing she had ever heard before. Ding, dong; ding, dong. A sweet, rhythmic musical note.

And a short time after that, a meaty smell began to tickle her nostrils. Humans passing by on the far side of the door … The little girl raised her head and inhaled carefully.

But the human girl she was seeking was not among these others. These others smelled only tender and delicious.

And the pooka, having run so far and eaten nothing for ages, realized she was very hungry.

If the pooka hadn’t been rather smart for her age, she would have burst out of the tomb, grabbed the nearest person and bitten off their head. Instead, she took time to think. She knew now – after what had happened to her poor, innocent mother – that humans could be dangerous to pookas.

Outside, the noise and bustle died down, then stopped. After a while the pooka eased open the door and poked out her ugly, horned head. A shining white world confronted her, with silvery flakes falling through the air. Little white flowers were also everywhere, poking their heads through the soft white carpet. From a grey stone building with lighted windows, the beautiful sound continued to ring out.

Leaving her hiding place, the door swinging closed behind her, the little girl followed the human scent into the building, her mouth watering. Here, hundreds of people were kneeling in rows with their backs to her, listening to a man in long black robes. Nearby, a small fat boy was yawning. Very carefully, the pooka reached out one long and hairy arm …

Her knuckles hit solid air, as if an invisible shield protected the boy. Puzzled, she pushed at the glass doors. The latch was made of iron, which fairies hate, and the shock of touching it made her snort with pain. At the far end of the church, the man in the black robes looked up and met the hurt red eyes of the pooka glaring in at him, through glass made cloudy by its monstrous breath. Startled at being noticed, the pooka turned and fled, back out of the church into the freezing world.

A little way off, an old woman in a red hat was kneeling before a snow-capped gravestone, arranging snowdrops in a jar. This time the pooka decided to do things properly, the way her mother had taught her – by shape-shifting into the old woman’s loved one.

Creeping up behind the old lady, the pooka gazed into her ageing mind and immediately spotted a handsome boy with thick black hair. Name? Johnny Forkin. Age? Nineteen. Relationship? Secretly engaged to this old woman, whose name was Mary Barrett.

Mary Barrett, now aged eighty-five, raised her head sharply. But then went back to arranging the flowers. ‘Ah, Johnny, my angel,’ she sighed to herself, ‘I do believe I’ll be joining you soon.’

Still the woman failed to look behind her, only shaking her head and saying a little louder: ‘Oh, Johnny, if by some miracle you can hear my voice as clearly as I seem to hear yours these days, then I wish you a happy birthday as I do every year, and I forgive you for running off to Dublin with my best friend Sheila Cunningham.’

‘Hush, Johnny, lie still. I know well it was all my own fault, because I was too boring and dull to run away with you myself. I tried to keep you here with me in Kilduff when all you wanted to do was see the world. But believe me, I’ve been regretting that mistake all my life and if you’d only come back to me before you died, I’d have followed you to Dublin in a heartbeat, and then maybe you wouldn’t have been murdered at that wild party.’

The pooka was getting very cold now as well as hungry. Her skin had softened and the black coat of hair melted – apart from a thick handsome shock of it left on her head. She was wearing a white shirt and black trousers, but they were far too thin for a snowy day. Losing patience, she tapped the old woman on the shoulder, and this time – with a wince of ageing joints – Mary Barrett twisted to look behind her. After a moment’s stunned disbelief, her wrinkled face lit up with the purest happiness. ‘Oh, Johnny,’ she quavered, ‘you’ve come for me at last! I have loved you so, for all my life! I’ll take your darling hand, I’m not afraid! Where are you bringing me, my angel? Heaven?’

The pooka licked up every last drop of blood and choked down every morsel of tough old flesh. She ate most of the bones, which were nicely thin and full of tasty marrow, but left the hands and feet, which were too gristly. These she buried with Mary Barrett’s tweed coat and red hat under the snow – because, like any tidy animal, she liked to cover her tracks. That done, the pooka headed back towards the tomb, to digest her meal at leisure. But before she could open the door of the tomb – which was slightly stuck – people began spilling out of the church.

The pooka hastily shape-shifted back into Johnny Forkin and stepped out of sight behind the grave. Most of the people leaving the churchyard were shadows in the heavy snow, but passing close by came a middle-aged woman with a tasty-looking child – blonde and blue-eyed in a pink hat, kicking at the snow with little pink boots, crying: ‘Pretty!’

If the pooka hadn’t been already full to bursting, that little child would have made the perfect snack. But Johnny’s trousers were very tight around the pooka’s waist – thanks to a bellyful of Mary Barrett, his faithful, forgotten teenage love.

A tall man with thick iron-grey hair joined the woman, taking her arm. He said to her, ‘I had a word with Noel.’

The woman leaned against him with a sigh, letting the child skip on ahead. ‘Well done, you. I did try to talk to Dianne, but she’s so upset and angry she wouldn’t even meet my eye. Did you try telling Noel that Aoife and Carla have gone to the fairy world?’

‘No. Dianne thinks fairy talk is a sign of madness, and Noel is a good man and stands by his wife. I just said to him that I was certain the girls would be back any day now.’

‘I am right, Maeve. Aoife knows about the time difference between the worlds, so she won’t let Carla stay away for long. I’m sure they’ll spend only a few hours having a quick look around paradise …’

‘In this world, because time goes a hundred times faster here. But I know they’ll be back soon. That’s what Aoife said when she texted you. And I trust her, Maeve.’

The pooka, in the shape of Johnny Forkin, was listening hard to all of this. And although the couple …

… were talking about several different people, there was a central image – a very important image – so strong in both their minds, that – almost without intending to do it – the pooka began changing shape again.

The pooka felt a deep, painful sadness. It would be so wonderful to be someone’s ‘precious daughter’ again. Looked after and petted and made to feel special. Tears pricked her lovely turquoise eyes.

At least until she tracked down that horrible human girl who had murdered her mother.

Kicking off her high-heeled shoes – because now she was dressed for a party, in a short black dress – the pooka stepped out from behind the statue and followed the couple down the graveyard path and out of the gate into the snowy square, where the human child …

PROLOGUE

It was a late night for the lads in Rourke’s pub in Kilduff. A few games of darts, increasingly random as the night wore on. And, of course, the same chat they’d been having for the past two months or so – how Grainne McDonnell had proposed to John Joe Foley on Valentine’s Day, and why in God’s name the man was still hesitating.

He’d better hurry and make up his mind. Because if he didn’t take her soon, any one of them would be happy to step in.

The fact that Grainne had twelve and a half million euros in her back pocket was neither here nor here. No, it was just that she was such a lovely girl. And very pretty too.

John Joe, feeling under pressure, left the lock-in early. In the pub car park, he wrenched open the battered door of the old red Ford (he never brought the vintage BMW to the pub). Driving slowly up the steep road to the mountains – engine straining – he pondered marriage. He felt bad about stringing Grainne along. It was unnerving how passionate she was about him, and he should put a stop to her dreams. But the truth was, he was waiting to see if his younger brother Shay would reappear. If Shay did come home, then John Joe might consider marrying Grainne for her money, if only in order to send the boy to college. Or maybe buy Shay a farm of his own. Set him up for life.

Then what did John Joe need the money for? He had the family farm, out on the empty bog, which he finally had in working order. He had the old house. And he was never going to marry for love. Love was too dangerous. His own father had been destroyed by the grá – sucked as dry as a butterfly’s abandoned husk by his wild, insatiable desire for his own wife.

Eamonn Foley had met his future muse walking along the cliff-top path – a beauty with long black curls and turquoise eyes, drifting out of the mist as if she’d flown in with the gulls. When he’d asked who she was, she’d only shrugged and smiled. So he’d named her ‘Moira’ and married her. He’d told everyone that she was his lenanshee – his fairy lover – and even though he’d never had an interest in art before, he bought oils and brushes and canvasses, and he painted her portrait over and over again, with increasing skill. That first year, she had borne him a son – John Joe – and the handsome little boy had adored her. But over the years Moira Foley had come and gone, as if she neither exactly wanted to be with her husband and son, nor to stay away. Every time she reappeared at their door, John Joe’s besotted father had taken her back, and returned to his art, and let the farm go to ruin again. Another son was born – Shay – and their mother stayed a while. Yet in the end she had thrown herself from the cliffs above the farm. And Eamonn Foley had died of a broken heart.

John Joe had lived with his own grief ever since. If it hadn’t been for Shay – then only five years old, and in need of minding – he might have followed his mother into the wild Atlantic.

At four thirty in the morning Willy Rourke finally lost patience and threw the rest of the lads out. ‘Have ye no homes to go to? I need my bed even if you don’t!’

They stumbled, grumbling, out into the wet dark car park, where they stood rolling a last fag and discussing what home to go to for another drink. The rain had briefly ceased hissing on the roofs and fields, and apart from their own voices, a sleepy silence had fallen over the small town of Kilduff.

Until through the night came the thunderous clatter of many wings, circling the outskirts of the town.

Nearing the pub, which was on one of the four narrow roads leading out of the town square.

The very air starting to vibrate with the beat of those vast wings, churning up a fierce tormenting wind as hot and stinking as the breath of hell. Several of the lads threw away their rollies in a shower of orange sparks, ready for action …

Then, just as if it seemed the flock was upon them, there came a deafening screeching, as if a thousand cats were being electrocuted, and everyone – even the bravest – hurled themselves to the ground behind the cars, some even trying to crawl beneath them.

Everyone, that is, but Padraig McNally, the butcher’s oldest son (brother of Lorcan), who – like his pal John Joe – was always ready for a fight (and for some reason this felt like a fight). He stepped out into the road, rolling up his sleeves and clenching his fists … But already the screeching had faded, and the mysterious flock was gone, streaming away towards the mountains, shrieking hideous murder at the hidden moon.

There was a long, heavy-breathing silence, and then some embarrassed throat-clearing as lads emerged from behind the cars. Padraig McNally didn’t jeer at them. Instead, he crossed himself, then rolled and lit another cigarette – his hands shaking so much it took him several attempts. ‘Lost souls,’ he said hoarsely, after inhaling deep and spitting. ‘My grandmother always told me they travel in packs. Keep the windows shut tonight, lads, or they’ll come for you.’ And then he laughed – weakly – and a few others laughed feebly with him. And the conversation became about what it really might have been – the Greenland geese returning home? ‘Bloody weird geese,’ said Padraig, getting out his phone. ‘I’ll tweet, to see does anyone know. How’s this? – Four thirty a.m., huge #scarybirds dive-bomb pub, fly off shrieking #lostsouls.’

Meanwhile John Joe had reached home around five – having had to walk the last part of the way, as he’d forgotten to go to the garage until too late, and the old red Ford had run out of diesel at the foot of the boreen. He didn’t mind about that – there was moonlight and even a faint lick of dawn in the sky to see his way home by.

The dogs came barking down to meet him, delighted to have him back. Once inside the farmhouse, he dropped his keys and wallet and phone onto the dresser (briefly checking his phone and grinning at the #lostsouls tweet from Padraig – hammered again!). Then he stripped off his jacket, took a seat by the range – still warm from cooking his dinner hours earlier – and placed his feet up on the stone surround and reached for his last naggin of Paddy’s off the nearby shelf. And took several mouthfuls out of the bottle – not bothered with a glass. Thoughtful. Contemplating Grainne.

The dogs wouldn’t stop their barking. Crashing round and round the yard outside in a frenzy of panic, as if there was thunder coming. Which there wasn’t. Finally, bottle in hand, John Joe stumbled to the door to curse the noisy fools into silence. But still they wouldn’t stop – in the weak light of the unborn morning they were rushing hysterically back and forwards between the house and the big shed. Puzzled, John Joe stuck his naggin in his pocket. Maybe there was a thief hiding out in the barn? Or the dogs had trapped a fox in there? Sobering up a little, he crossed the yard to see.

There was nothing unusual inside the barn. But as he stood just within the big metal doors, rolling and lighting another cigarette, he heard a racket of mighty wings: Whoop, whoop, whoop. He would have rushed out to see what was really going on, but for the fact that the dogs clung with their teeth to his trouser legs …

Moments later, blown in on the stinking breath of hell, nearly fifty bat-winged demons ripped the tin roof off the house with a terrible screeching ripping sound, then piled inside the exposed rooms like crows into a carcass, gutting, ripping, ransacking, pillaging.

Through the hinges of the barn door, John Joe stared in disbelief as the only home he’d ever known – the house where he’d been born, reared, orphaned and then had raised his own little brother to be a man of sixteen – was rapidly and systematically destroyed, the demons tossing out the furniture like a baby throwing its toys out of the cot.

The two sheepdogs, shuddering, pressed against his legs. But the poor wee terrier – always more guts than sense – shot across the yard like a bullet, straight through the torn-off door of the farmhouse into the fray. Seconds later, his small brown body flew up into the dawn sky, one leg hanging from a strip of skin. Watching the little warrior crash-land in the field beyond, John Joe’s confused and still-drunken brain sobered up a little more.

He knew he hadn’t lived the best life. He’d drunk too much and too often, and hadn’t always treated people right. Like stringing along poor Grainne, who loved him so much she had proposed to him on Valentine’s Day. Also, all his fighting and carrying on. These were sins, he knew. But did it justify the good Lord – or, indeed, the Devil – in sending fifty demons from hell against him, to destroy all he had?

Grand, maybe it did, but if he was already damned, he still wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

John Joe took another mouthful from his naggin of Paddy’s, and glanced around the barn to see what he had available. A shotgun – two barrels, that would need constant reloading. A few containers of farm diesel. Bales of hay. Two crates of old empty whiskey bottles.

He filled up the bottles with diesel and plugged their necks with straw, slung the shotgun over his shoulder, and carried the crates across the yard into the shadow of the tractor. The remaining two dogs – Rex and Bella – slunk trembling after him, their bellies pressed to the ground. Three of the demons were sitting with their backs to the yard on the front wall of the house, screaming encouragement to their infernal friends, who were dismantling what was left of the interior. The nearest window to John Joe was Shay’s bedroom, which was heaving with the filthy creatures, hopping over each other like chickens in a cage too small. Two of them were leaping up and down on his brother’s bed. One had wrenched a small picture off the wall above the headboard …

The picture was of Moira Foley, painted by their father – the only portrait of her left after John Joe had sold the rest. He’d not liked Shay keeping it, even though it was very small. The sight of his mother’s beautiful face filled John Joe’s heart with rage and pain. Yet in the end he’d learned to tolerate the picture being there. Got used to seeing her, watching over his little brother.

Now that filthy beast had the portrait gripped in its peculiar little hands, seeming to admire its stunning beauty …

John Joe lit the first of the Molotov cocktails with the matches he had bought earlier in the pub, and fired it over the wall into Shay’s bedroom – his job made so much easier by the roof being gone. Right on target (all those years of Gaelic football not gone to waste, after all), with spectacular success. The monster sprang skywards with a deathly screech, the little picture flying out of its hand, then – wings on fire and unable to fly – crashed back on top of the shrieking rabble below. Meanwhile John Joe was sending a rain of blazing bottles into the rest of the house. Trapped in close quarters, unable to spread their wings, the howling demons couldn’t escape from the inferno. One tried to burst from the door, but Bella sprang from under the tractor, biting and snarling, her teeth locked in the flesh of its neck. The brave bitch got her head ripped off for her pains, but not before driving the monster back into the flames.

Only the three demons who had been sitting on the wall escaped unscathed. They rose in fury, circling to see where the attack was coming from, spotted John Joe and flew straight at him. He hurled a lit bottle at the leader; the beast veered off course, smashing through the doors of the barn and setting the piles of hay alight. A second monster ended up in the chicken coop – the hens racing away from the wreckage, feathers blazing.

John Joe rolled under the tractor just as the third demon grabbed for him. To get at him, it upended the tractor but Rex – stout heart! – grabbed hold of the monster’s scaly leg, and in the moment that the demon turned to savage the poor old dog – which screamed a scream to break your heart – John Joe scrambled to his feet and raced for the orchard behind the barn, where he crouched behind the water tank, his shotgun loaded.

Moving in and out of his range of vision, the monster trashed its way around the yard, hunting for its victim in and under the cars, dismantling the boiler house. Searching everywhere. Until, eventually, it found him.

CHAPTER ONE

In panic, Carla raced down the tunnel of white roses. A foul demon was swooping from the hot blue sky, its vast leathery wings beating up a foul storm, its shrunken head poking forward on its long scrawny neck, its mangled beak snapping at the air …

But Carla couldn’t run; she couldn’t abandon her best friend, who was being dragged away by that horrible little man in his dog-skin coat. She and Aoife had been together all their remembered lives. Side by side. Sisters at heart. She had to rescue her friend, never mind the risk …

Like a helicopter landing, the whoop of leathery wings was shaking the white flowers, sending clouds of petals whirling.

‘Ultan!’ screamed Aoife. ‘Get Carla back to the house! Go! I can look after myself!’

The next moment Carla found herself wrenched off her feet by a strong pair of arms, and swung over a broad back. She howled in fury as she beat at Ultan’s shoulders with her fists: ‘No, put me down!’ Then, in sudden wild hope, she screamed towards Aoife at the top of her voice, ‘I wish we were both safe home!’

But already the teenage boy had fled with her, racing up the tunnel and across the gold-paved courtyard towards the mansion. And the winged demon was upon them, swooping from side to side through the hordes of golden men, crashing the statues over with its wings, its scaly neck extended, eyes blazing, shrivelled fingers stretching out to snatch her from Ultan’s back …

Please God, look after my parents and my little sister Zoe and let them not be too sad.

The air around her exploded. She was seized like a leaf by the wind, whirled up through the hot blue air, nothing below her feet. She could hear Ultan yelling faintly somewhere: ‘Nooooo!!!!’

Please God, Carla prayed as the world fell away below her, the city of Falias dwindling to a dot of pink light as dark clouds of terror swirled in her mind. Please God, look after everyone and let my death be quick.

Still the wind swept her upwards, howling like ripped metal in her ears, tearing the breath from her lungs, the strength from her heart. It swept her around in a nauseous light-footed dance on empty air. She was on a roller-coaster ride to death.

She was alive. On her knees, being violently sick. And she didn’t dare open her eyes, because she knew she was in the monster’s nest, and the leather-winged sluagh was standing over her, waiting until she finished vomiting to rip the first strand of tender flesh from her back. Slowly the retching stopped. She crouched in terror, waiting for the pain to start …

She was on her hands and knees in black mud. And large drops of rain were falling on her back, slowly soaking through her thin black dress. She opened her eyes wider. She slid them cautiously from side to side. Low stone walls; dripping brambles. A patch of gorse, pushing out a few wet yellow flowers. The sound of sheep bleating.

With a deep sob of gratitude, Carla sank down on her face in the mud and kissed with love the hard cold stones of the human world that had made her. Thank you, God, for creating this wet, green land of Mayo. Thank you, brain, for realizing I might have one last wish. Thank you, Aoife, for granting that last wish just in time …

With a fresh burst of relief, she scrambled to her feet, crying, ‘Aoife?’ But, worryingly, the stony farm track on which she found herself coiled emptily away downhill into the mist. ‘Aoife?’ Silence, apart from the increasing hiss of heavy rain on bracken.

Then, just as she was starting to seriously panic, came the sound of someone else being sick: ‘Bleuuurgh!!!’

‘Aoife!’ Carla rushed happily down the track, splashing through freezing puddles in her bare feet. ‘I’m coming!’ But round the corner was only a plump, red-headed teenage boy in a blue shellsuit, doubled over on his knees, throwing up into a ditch. Sliding to a halt, she cried in shock: ‘Ultan! What are you doing here?’

Immediately Carla felt bad for hurting his feelings. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that – you’re very welcome to Mayo. And sorry about the weather, I know it’s not what you’re used to in the fairy world …’

Ultan rose unsteadily to his knees, wiping his face on a handful of wet grass. ‘Welcome to where, did you say?’

‘Somewhere in the west of Ireland – not too far from Kilduff, I hope, although everywhere looks exactly the same on a day like this.’ Shivering in her wet, thin dress, Carla climbed onto a nearby gate, leaning over it, peering up and down the field. The downpour was now easing to a fine mist, and ghostly mountains were appearing against a grey sky. A pale hint of morning sun was veiled in misty, drifting clouds. ‘Aoife? Aoife? AOIFE!!!’

But only the mountains echoed back her cry: ‘Eee … Faa! Eeee … Faaaaa …’

‘Ugh. Maybe she’s still travelling between the worlds.’ Although at the back of her mind, a terrible thought was forming …

No. No. She’d shouted at Aoife to bring them both safe home. And Mayo wasn’t Ultan’s home. He’d just come along because he had been holding onto her, just like her dress had come with her because she was wearing it …

‘What? Where?’ For a wild, happy moment Carla assumed he’d spotted Aoife. The changeling boy was leaping up and down, arms whirling like windmills …

‘I bet Mam has scones in the oven! Maybe even a cake!’ And he took off like a hare, shrieking over his shoulder as he disappeared into the thinning mist: ‘Come on, you’re going to love my mam! She’s the best mam in all the world!’

Leaping off the gate, Carla chased after him in a whirl of panic. ‘Ultan, wait! Ultan!’

When she rounded the next corner, he was standing in the middle of the track, staring with huge horrified eyes at a fairly new dormer bungalow with a large blue-and-white FOR SALE sign nailed to the gatepost. ‘This isn’t my house,’ he was saying in a frightened voice. ‘This isn’t my house.’

She caught up with him again at the next turn. The rainy mist was rolling away, and the sun strengthening above the clouds. Wet copper fields were coming into view, sweeping downhill to a grey-green ocean. Another little house was a long way down the hill, almost at the coast road – a converted one-storey cottage with solar panels and a blue-painted extension, and a set of old stables behind it, once used for farm horses. Ultan stood gazing in misery over the glistening landscape. ‘I don’t understand,’ he kept repeating, in a tight, desperate voice. ‘I don’t understand.’

But Carla, on the other hand, understood exactly where she was. The cottage with the solar panels was her grandmother’s – where she’d spent all her childhood until her parents had saved up enough to build their own place. So she hadn’t messed up after all. The wish had brought her home, and Ultan – what a relief! – had only come with her by accident, because he had been holding onto her.

Teresa Gilvarry’s yellow two-seater sports car wasn’t in the driveway. But the back door was unlocked. Carla ran through the kitchen, where a lovely smell of roasting meat drifted from the oven into the cosy living room, and poked her head into the little bedrooms. ‘Nan? Nan?’ The place was empty. But there was a drawer of Carla’s clothes in the spare room, and she took a moment to strip off her wet dress and pull on a dry hoodie and a pair of jeans. In the mirror she gave her blonde-streaked, shoulder-length hair a quick brush, and wiped the mud from her slim face with a cleansing wipe.

Ultan was standing gazing around him at the gas-ringed cooker and fitted cupboards and the mantelpiece crammed with wedding, christening and remembrance cards. He seemed as disorientated as when Carla had found him outside the new dormer bungalow. ‘This reminds me of Teresa Gilvarry’s place, but it’s completely different.’

Carla was amazed. ‘Teresa’s my grandmother! So that explains why I was so sure I knew you when I met you in Falias.’

Ultan looked even more confused. ‘Grandmother? No, the Teresa I know is only Mam’s age.’

‘Oh … Really? It can’t be the same Teresa Gilvarry then, unless your mam is seventy-eight. Hang on, I need to check on Aoife. I’m sure she’s gone straight to Kilduff, but I’d rather be sure.’ Carla dropped into a chair at the table, pulling her grandmother’s laptop towards her.

Ultan flinched in astonishment as the screen glowed slowly into life. ‘Mother of God, what on earth is that thing?’

‘I know – ancient. But at least it’s got Skype! So I can ring my mam, and she can find out about Aoife. Come on, come on – ring. Yay! ZOE!’

The glowing screen morphed into her parents’ living room, with Carla’s little sister bouncing up and down on the big blue leather sofa, screaming, ‘You missed my fifth birthday! You owe me a present!’

‘Oh, Zoe, I’m so, so sorry.’ Carla nearly burst into tears of shock. In her happiness to be back, she’d completely forgotten about the time difference. She’d been away only a day in the fairy world, but that meant … Multiply by hundred … Three months! Her poor parents must have been demented with worry! ‘Zoe, quick, is Mam there?’

The next moment Zoe was shoved aside by another little girl with blonde curls who shrieked, ‘Ultan! Are you Skyping from the fairy world?’

‘Eva?’ gasped Ultan, shoving his head between Carla and the screen. ‘This is amazing … Where are you?’

Carla shouted over Ultan’s head, ‘Eva, do you know – has your big sister come home yet?’

But Eva had already disappeared, and the distant living room was swinging in a sickening circle …

… and the next moment Zoe’s snub-nosed face filled the screen, scowling in disappointment. ‘That’s not the fairy world, that’s my nan’s house. Are you Ultan?’

After a brief struggle Eva’s face reappeared, rather pink about the cheeks. ‘It must be the fairy world, ’cos Ultan’s a fairy …’

The living room turned suddenly upside down and Zoe could be heard screeching out of sight: ‘No, he’s not, he’s a monster, he’s a big, fat, ugly—’

‘Eva, your mother’s here to collect you. Girls, please be careful with that laptop.’ A familiar adult voice filtered through the speakers, but before Carla could shout: Mam! I’m here! the connection froze, then dropped.

‘Damn it.’ Carla clicked repeatedly, but nothing happened. ‘Come on, you stupid thing. Ugh …’ She shoved the computer aside. ‘So frustrating.’

With big round eyes, Ultan picked the little laptop up and turned it over, checking the back. ‘What is this thing?’

Still trying to work out what Eva meant by ‘ages’, Carla answered distractedly, ‘An old iBook.’

‘An old book? Mother of God, I had no idea there’d be such a thing in the human world …’

‘How did Aoife get back before me? Maybe I travelled slowly, because you were hanging onto me.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that! Just there being two of us … And I suppose even a couple of hours would make a difference when it all gets multiplied by a hundred. I wonder what the month is? Daren’t look.’ But she did, leaning towards him to squint at the date in the corner of the screen. ‘February! Ugh, I was right – three months.’

‘February?’ Almost throwing the laptop back down on the table – like it had bitten him – Ultan stared from it to Carla. ‘This tells you it’s February? Is it accurate?’

‘July, August, Septem— I’ve been gone for seven months!’ He clasped his plump cheeks, mouth distorted with shock. ‘Mother of God …’

Carla winced. The poor lad had obviously no idea about the time difference. ‘Oh, Ultan – didn’t you know?’

‘So awful for you …’ But then a car pulled up outside, and she leaped to her feet in relief. ‘Here’s Nan – she’ll sort you out. She knows absolutely everyone around here so she’ll know exactly where you live, and we can get you home in no time – once she gets over how amazed she is at seeing me!’

Before she could open the back door, it flew open with a kick, and there was her grandmother on the doorstep, a bag of shopping in each hand, wearing a purple cape and a vivid green woollen hat with dangling pom-poms, surveying her kitchen with a frown. Instead of being amazed to see her granddaughter, she offered Carla a brief – in fact, rather angry – nod, before turning her eyes to Ultan.

‘Yes, dear, I can see that, I’m not blind yet, you know.’ But the old lady was still only staring at Ultan, while slowing setting down her shopping.

Carla protested loudly, ‘Nan, it’s me – Carla! Weren’t you worried about me at all? I’ve been gone for three months!’

‘I’m not deaf either, dear, so there’s no need to shout. And no, I wasn’t worried once I heard you’d been having an absolutely wonderful time going to wild parties in Dublin …’

‘Jesus, Mary Mother of God and all the saints.’ Now the old woman was slowly collapsing onto a chair, her wrinkled hand pressed to her heart. ‘Look who it is. I can’t believe my eyes. It’s Ultan McNeal.’

Ultan – who had turned bright pink under the old woman’s scrutiny – beamed happily: ‘This is great – Carla said you knew everyone. I need to find my way home – do you know where I live?’

‘Ultan McNeal,’ repeated Teresa Gilvarry in a dazed, faraway voice, turning her fading eyes towards the mantelpiece. ‘Ultan McNeal, come home at last, just like his mother always said he would.’

And that was when Carla, following her grandmother’s gaze, finally realized – with sinking heart – why it was that as soon as she’d set her eyes on Ultan in the fairy world, she’d been so certain she knew his face. On the mantelpiece, among all the wedding and christening cards, stood a very old, yellowing remembrance card. A remembrance card which had been pointed out to her a thousand times since she was a little girl.

‘Poor Ultan McNeal!’ her nan would say, gazing fondly at the portrait on the front of the card – the faded figure of a plump teenage boy with thick auburn hair, wearing an electric-blue shellsuit. ‘My darling neighbour’s only child, got late in life! Such a poor weak object he was that the doctors said he would never last into his second year, but Kathleen made a wish off the fairies to save his life, and overnight he became a pink fat bouncing thing …’ At that point in the story Teresa’s voice would always rise to a dramatic wail: ‘Ah, Ultan McNeal, where did you go? Seventeen years old when you disappeared up the mountain, never to be seen again! And your poor fond mammy looking out for you night and day until the day she died, and making me promise to keep on watching for you, and to make sure that your poor father had a second place at the table always laid out for you, just in case the fairies ever did let you home.’

And that was when Carla remembered that Kathleen McNeal’s own remembrance card also stood on her grandmother’s mantelpiece, right next to her son’s.

CHAPTER TWO

‘Mam, are you there? It’s me, Carla! I’m home – at Nan’s! Can you hear me? You’re breaking up on me …’ Carla moved out of the back door onto the outside step, trying to find better reception.

Behind her, in the kitchen, her nan was ‘comforting’ Ultan: ‘Now, here’s your own remembrance card – isn’t it a nice one? I’ve kept it for thirty-one years. And here’s your mother’s – what a fine, well-built woman she was. Ah now, don’t cry, Kathleen’s been gone a long time – twenty years! – and there’s no good crying over spilled milk. Drink your tea. There’s nothing that a nice cup of tea can’t cure, as Kathleen would say, and one thing you could say about your mother, she was always right. Which was probably why the funeral was such a small affair.’

‘Drink your tea! We haven’t the time to sit around here chatting. I promised your mother that as soon as you got home, I would sort everything out for you. She warned me one of your father’s relatives might try to move in on the farm, and I have to say, she was always …’

Carla flattened her hand over her other ear, to block out Teresa’s prattling. ‘Mam, I can’t hear you, but if you can hear me, I’ll be home in a couple of hours, and I love you so much, and I’m so happy you and Dad are still alive. What? Oh …’

‘… of fun, was it? Not like boring old Kilduff?’ raged Dianne Heffernan, her voice suddenly coming loud and clear through the speaker. ‘Did you have a wonderful time?’

‘No, of course not!’ This was really distressing – her mother seemed more angry than happy to hear from her. Maybe that was a normal psychological reaction, but surely Dianne should have been a small bit pleased to find out her daughter was still alive, before she got mad at her for running away in the first place? ‘I promise you, it wasn’t fun at all.’

‘How could you do this to me and Dad? Running off to Dublin and going to all those wild parties with your new little friend, Sheila Cunningham?’

‘Don’t lie to me, Carla. I made Aoife tell us everything about what you’ve been up to and—’ Gone.

Carla spent a few seconds staring over her grandmother’s garden at the grey-green ocean beyond. What the—? She’d assumed her grandmother was getting confused in her old age and had got her mixed up with someone else altogether. But if she’d heard correctly, her mother also thought she’d been in Dublin, going to wild parties with some strange girl. And it seemed this falsehood had originated with Aoife, who had got home before her. But why had Aoife told her mother and grandmother something so ridiculous? It didn’t make sense …

‘Come along, come along!’ Her grandmother came pushing past her, hustling a tearful Ultan towards the little sports car. ‘No time to sit around – there’s already two offers been made on the property. Carla, you can ride in the luggage space behind the seats. Darling, are you deaf or confused or something? Get in the car!’

The sports car pounded back up the hill, did a squealing right turn at the FOR SALE sign, shot up the driveway and screeched to a halt behind the dormer bungalow. Teresa Gilvarry hopped out into the wintry sunshine, green pom-poms swinging. ‘Come on, everyone out!’

Ultan stayed in the car, quavering tearfully, ‘But this isn’t my house, Mrs Gilvarry.’

‘You’re right! It isn’t! Because there’s your house, Ultan McNeal – let go to rack and ruin despite your mother insisting that it was always kept nice for you and a place always laid for you at the table!’ And the old woman jabbed an angry finger in the direction of a washing line, where a man’s black trousers and a row of beige Y-fronts flapped in the wind. Behind the wet clothes was a hedge of young conifers. And behind them again was an old stone shed. The front door had been taken off its hinges and inside the building were neatly stacked piles of turf – yet it had clearly once been lived in, because it had a chimney and there were yellow curtains – now faded and torn – at the windows.

Ultan was climbing out of the car, his eyes growing huge with horror: ‘No. It can’t be. Oh God. It is.’ And he buried his face in his hands and broke down altogether. ‘Oh, Mam, Mam, why did you have to die? You’d never have let our lovely home be turned into a turf-shed!’

Carla scrambled out over the driver’s seat. ‘Nan, stop springing these awful things on him out of the blue!’

‘Don’t “Nan” me! The lad needs to know the full story before we go any further. Now, you see that black-headed girl peeking out the kitchen window where she thinks we can’t see her? That’s your wicked cousin, Grainne McDonnell.’

‘She was born after you disappeared, and God forgive me, she might be a real beauty but she was a bad ’un from the start. Your father was fond of her because she reminded him of a sister of his that died, and she took full advantage when he was left all alone.’

But Teresa ignored her and rushed on: ‘The little witch promised him to mind him in his old age if he would only let her use his savings to build a new house for the two of them in place of the old, and sign over everything to her in his will. I warned him: “Don’t let her do this to you, Jimmy McNeal! She only wants the money so she can persuade that gorgeous young man in the next valley to marry her!” And I also reminded him that your mother made him promise never to move from the old house, and always leave a place set for you at the table, because she knew the fairies had taken you away and that you’d be home again as soon as ever you could be.’