Red grabbed me by my shirt and spun me to the left. I lost my footing and he fell on top of me still pulling my shirt with both fists. ‘What have you done?’ he said with fire in his eyes.
‘I didn’t do anything. I lost my grandfather there.’
Red let me go, stood and started back down the path. ‘I cannot help you,’ he said without turning around.
I chased after him. ‘What does it mean? What does tughe mean?’ I placed my hand on his shoulder. He stopped but didn’t face me.
‘It means… worm. Now leave my island.’ He strode down the path with his arms outstretched, brushing the gorse bushes. As he did, they closed behind him. We couldn’t have followed even if we wanted to.
The rest of the gang, mouths open, were on their feet.
‘Does anyone know what just happened?’ I asked.
Chapter Thirty-Two
It took a while before the gorse bushes let us pass. There was little talking on the way back. For the most part we concentrated on not plummeting.
Back at The Digs I volunteered to hike down to the beach and scrounge for driftwood. Tuan agreed to come with me and help persuade some fish to be our main course.
‘What do we do now?’ Tuan asked as we weaved our way through the gorse. ‘Should we start digging for smoking worms?’
‘I have no idea what to do.’
‘Oh, that’s not good. Conor, you are our ideas man.’
I made a guttural sound. It was meant to be a laugh but by the time it made it out of my mouth it was a pitiful grunt of a broken spirit. ‘Well, start thinking up your own ideas, ’cause I’m fresh out.’
Tuan wisely didn’t say anything else during our walk. I didn’t blame him, even I wasn’t happy with my own company. What the hell was I doing here? What if Red never comes back? What if this whole thing was a giant goose chase? What if Dad dies while I’m shipwrecked out here and I don’t even get a chance to say good-bye?
My mood was no better back at The Digs in front of a roaring fire. When Brendan sat down next to me he had that look on his face, like he was going to bestow a pearl of wisdom.
Before he could open his mouth I said, ‘Shut up.’
‘Well, it looks like someone forgot to put on his feathered underwear today.’
‘I got them on, Brendan, they’re just damp – like everything else in my life. Leave me alone will you.’
‘OK, maybe I’ll just have a game of checkers with my good buddy Turlow. Where is he anyway?’
It wasn’t until the food was ready that we all started asking the same question. We scouted as much of the perimeter as we dared in darkness but The Turlow was gone.
An hour of discussion over a cold dinner couldn’t solve the mystery of what had happened to the Banshee. The only constructive product of the conversation was a plan to search for him at first light.
As I stood from the table I said, ‘Maybe he’s the only one of us with enough sense to abandon this stupid quest.’ No one was disappointed when I went to bed.
Later Brendan sat on the edge of my bunk. ‘Conor, I know about things being so bleak that it seems easier to give up. I’ve been there – but now is not the time.’
‘I know and you’re right,’ I said without opening my eyes. It was exactly what I had been lying there thinking for the last hour. ‘I’m sorry for my foul mood. Do me a favour, apologise to Tuan for me.’
Brendan nodded.
I made the effort and propped myself up on my elbows. ‘I’m not giving up, Brendan. I’m just tired and scratched to hell and cold and
… and too tired to even finish this sentence. We’ve been at this for a long time. I’m going to rest tonight – tomorrow I’ll figure out how to save The Land.’ I attempted a smile. ‘I’ve done it before you know.’
I dropped my head back on my pillow with that thought on my mind. Sure I saved The Land once before but I had my dad with me then – without him I just didn’t have a clue.
‘Tomorrow,’ I said, not even knowing if Brendan was still there. ‘Things will all become clear tomorrow.’
Little did I know how prophetic that sentence would be.
That night was full of fits and starts punctuated by vivid and cryptic dreams. It seemed that the more experienced I became with dreaming the less understandable they were. I had almost given up trying to decipher any meaning in them. That night I dreamt I was in a mayonnaise jar filled with little smoking red-faced worms. I stabbed a tiny red earthworm and he slid away with the Lawnmower. In another dream the invisible man was back. During a phase of amateur psychoanalysis I had decided that the invisible man was me, but in this vision I dreamt that the invisible man was skulking around stealing stuff and I thought maybe it was Red. Red did have a creepy habit of sneaking up on us. I woke in the darkness and listened – nothing. I reached under my bed and strapped on the Sword of Duir then fell back into a fitful sleep. The last dream I had that night would have, under normal circumstances, shot me right out of bed. The invisible man pulled up a chair next to my bunk and stuck something into my shoulder. Then he reached to his collar and removed an amulet from around his neck – instantly he became visible.
When I opened my eyes I knew exactly what had been done to me? I didn’t have to wonder. Once you have had one of my Aunt Nieve’s paralysing pins stuck in your neck, you don’t forget the sensation. This pin wasn’t actually in my neck; it was in the top of my shoulder. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to turn my head when I heard Turlow’s voice.
‘How do you spell butcher?’
Just like in my dream, Turlow was sitting in a chair next to my bed with his legs crossed as he casually wrote onto an emain slate.
‘You’re the invisible man.’
He looked up from the slate. ‘I’m who?’
‘You are the invisible man – I dreamt about you.’
‘That, Conor, is not possible.’
‘No, I did. I dreamt about you but I didn’t know it was you. You were invisible. I saw you walking with Essa and talking to Cialtie, but I thought it was me. I didn’t see that it was you until you took that amulet off your neck.’
Turlow stopped writing and poked the amulet that was now hanging around the emain slate. ‘You and your uncle’s dream vision is truly remarkable. You are the only ones that have ever seen even the tiniest bit past my seithe amulet.’
Seithe, I thought, searching the language database in my head. Seithe means hide.
‘I suspect all of the dreamers in The Land will spot me now, but I had to use the amulet on the slate ’cause I don’t want a reply to come through and erase this message before Red can read it.’
‘That’s Essa’s slate I take it?’
He tilted his head in a gesture of false guilt. ‘I always take the opportunity to steal something when I am in the Alderlands. The next time you are there, you should try it. Everyone always suspects a Brownie. But I don’t imagine you will be visiting in the Alderlands any time soon – or ever.’
‘So Brendan was right, you are Cialtie’s lackey.’
He stopped his writing and looked sharply up. ‘There are no lackeys here. Cialtie rightfully wants back his Oak Throne and I want the Banshees to finally hold the position they deserve in The Land.’
‘Yeah, as Cialtie’s lackeys.’
I thought for a second that he was going to hit me, but then he laughed. ‘I find it very hard to be provoked by a person who can’t move from the neck down.’
He had a point. I would have shrugged in agreement if I could have moved my shoulders. It was amazing how calm I was about all of this. Maybe ’cause last night I had already decided that I had failed, this was just the
