John Lenahan - The Shadowmagic Trilogy

‘What is your name?’ I asked.

‘Deirdre,’ she whispered.

We entered the beech forest. Every time I spoke she shushed me, like I was speaking in a library, but when the trees thinned out, Mom answered a couple of my questions. She told me that she had been planning this jailbreak for a long time. She and some people she called the Fili had been secretly tunnelling through that wall at night for weeks. Each morning she would cast some kind of magic to conceal it. I asked her how she could have known that we were going to be there. In a conspiratorial tone of voice, she told me that she cast Shadowrunes. When I asked her why we were whispering she answered, ‘Because beech trees are very indiscreet.’

Other than that we rode in silence for about an hour. The beeches gave way to flowering ash trees. Fine yellow flowers covered the ground and marked our hoof prints like snow.

Dad pulled up beside us. He looked very tired. ‘Castle Nuin is near. Can we get sanctuary there?’

‘I’m afraid when the lords find out about Conor,’ Mom said, ‘we won’t have friends anywhere.’

Dad nodded in resignation.

‘We don’t have much further to ride. I have a boat up ahead. If we can make it to the Fililands we will be safe.’

We travelled for another fifteen minutes or so until we came to a river. Dad dismounted and splashed his face with the water. ‘River Lugar,’ he sighed, ‘I thought I would never see you again.’ He looked up at my mother. ‘Nor did I think I would ever see you again, Deirdre.’

‘Come, Oisin.’ Her voice cracked a little as she spoke. ‘We don’t have time for this. The boat is just a little way downstream.’

The boat was a canvas-stretched canoe. Dad called it a carrack. It was hidden under some ash branches. Mom returned the branches to underneath a nearby tree, then placed her hand on the trunk and said, ‘Thank you.’ Maybe it was a trick of the light but I could have sworn the tree bowed to her – just a little.

The boat was lined with straw mats and was big enough for Dad and me to lie down next to each other. Mom sat in the back and told us to rest. We had drifted downstream for maybe thirty seconds before I was out cold.

Let me tell you, the dreams in Tir na Nog are worth the price of admission. Even though I had nothing to compare it with, I can’t imagine that people in the Real World have dreams anything like I had in that boat.

I dreamt my father was teaching a lecture at the front of a classroom and I raised my hand in answer to a question. He drew a sword and sliced it off! My hand landed on my desk where it seemed to be encased in amber glass, like a huge paperweight. When I looked back, my father was now my uncle and he was laughing at me, saying, ‘No glow now.’

The classroom became a room in a high tower; my mother and my aunt were clenched in a fight to the death. Mom’s pouch was open and amber balls were falling to the floor in slow motion. Each time one hit the ground there was a blinding flash, and after each flash the scene in front of me changed. One moment the two women were fighting, the next, they were embracing, like two sisters sharing a secret. Fighting – embracing – fighting – embracing – the scene kept changing until the flashes came so frequently that I could see nothing but bright light.

The last image I saw before I awoke was Sally. She was waiting for me outside the cinema. She waited so long that her legs became tree roots and burrowed into the ground. Her arms turned to boughs and sprouted leaves. At the last second before she turned entirely into a tree, she saw me. She tried to say, ‘Where are you?’ but the wood engulfed her in mid-sentence.

I awoke from my first dream with such a jolt that I instantly stood up, which was a mistake. I was still in the boat. Even though it was beached, it tipped over. I fell smack down in the shoreline as the boat flipped over painfully on the back of my legs. I quickly struggled out from under it and desperately searched for Sally (or the tree that had become Sally) before I came to my senses. I collapsed on the ground and rubbed the back of my calves. So that’s what a dream is like . I couldn’t decide if I wanted to close my eyes and continue it, or never fall asleep again.

A tug on my collar made me realise that something was hanging around my neck. Attached to the end of a leather strap was a beautiful gold ornament. It was shaped like a tiny tornado with leaves spinning in it. As I marvelled at the intricacies of my new jewellery, the smell of food and a campfire hit me. My nose went up like a batter who had just hit a fly ball. It was a smell I was powerless not to follow.

At least this day was starting better than the previous one. Yesterday I awoke to the nightmare of finding myself chained to a wall by a lunatic uncle who was determined to give me a new nickname – Lefty . Today I walked into the dream-come-true of my father and my mother sitting around a campfire. They were holding hands (well, hand) and deep in conversation when I came around a huge weeping willow. They broke off when they saw me.

‘Good morning,’ my father said.

‘Good morning,’ I replied, not really looking at him. My eyes were glued to my mother. At a glance I would have thought she was my age until I looked into her eyes. I was starting to learn that here, in Tir na Nog, it wasn’t grey hair or a wrinkled face that betrayed someone’s age, like in the Real World – it was the eyes.

‘Good morning,’ I said.

She stood up. It was an awkward moment, like we were meeting for the first time. She was nervous.

‘Good morning, Conor.’

I wrapped my arms around her. I had a lifetime of mothering to make up for. Her return hug told me she felt the same.

‘I could get very used to this,’ I said, trying unsuccessfully to stop the dam from breaking behind my eyes.

‘And I too.’ She wept.

Dad left us for a respectable amount of time before he interrupted. ‘Cup of tea, Conor?’

I wiped my eyes and saw Dad grinning from ear to ear, holding a steaming cup in his hand. ‘Thanks,’ I said as I took a seat next to him. ‘I think I just had a dream.’

‘Yeah, me too. Intense, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘Are all dreams like that?’

‘I don’t know. Like you, I never had a dream in the Real World. This being your first one, it must have … What’s that phrase you use? Freaked you out. ’

‘Freaked you out?’ Mom said.

‘You’ll get used to it,’ Dad replied.

I have had a lot of breakfasts in my day, but let me tell you, if all breakfasts were like this, I would never sleep late again. The tea was made from willow bark. It didn’t taste good as much as it felt good. Mom said that it would ease the strains and bruises of the previous day. It wasn’t until the willow tea started to do its work that I realised just how much pain I had been in: my neck from the whip, my arms and wrists from being clapped in chains, my back from the horse ride and my head from – just plain shock. Blessed relief came as each part of my body stopped hurting, like the peace you get when a neighbour finally stops drilling on the adjacent wall.

‘Found this around my neck,’ I said.

Dad reached inside his shirt and produced an identical necklace. ‘Me too. It’s one of your mother’s specialities. It’s a rothlú amulet.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘it’s beautiful.’

‘It’s not for show,’ she replied, ‘it’s for protection.’

‘I don’t think I need any protection around here. Every time I get attacked, I seem to be surrounded by some gold force field.’

‘You have been lucky,’ she said. ‘I placed that spell on you when you were born, but it only protects you from attacks from your relatives.’