Among the Unseen (10 page)

“I was raised by the queen, you idiot,” she said. “My parents are both Tuatha Dé Danann, and so am I.”

“Yeah, but you’ve been in Tír na nÓg for what, five minutes? I’ve been here my whole life.”

“It’s not my fault where I was born! And you’re not so special. So you can run fast—big deal.”

“Oh yeah? What can
you
do? Do you even
get
abilities when you’re from Ériu?”

Eden felt like punching this rude boy with his red hair and stupid opinions. “I’ll show you what I can do. I’ll race you after all. Back to where we started.”

“You’re on,” he said, and without looking back he was off, leaving a cloud of dust and leaves behind him.

Eden grabbed hold of the closest tree trunk and concentrated. Then she stepped through the sidh and quickly closed it behind her. She was sitting calmly on the ground when the boy arrived moments later. He stopped and gaped at her. “Took you long enough,” she said.

“Whoa,” he said. “How did you do that?”

Eden smiled smugly as she stood up. “I can go anywhere, just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “And I
don’t
need to run. I’m a sidh-opener, just like my mother, the queen.”

The boy stared at her for a moment longer, and then a sheepish smile broke across his face. He held out his hand to her. “Well, that’s pretty cool,” he said. “I know your name is Eden. Mine’s Niall.”

“I know,” Eden said, but she took his hand and shook it.

They stood there looking at each other for a few seconds. Finally Niall shouted, “C’mon!” and headed back into the woods—at a slower pace this time. They spent the afternoon climbing trees and sliding down vines. Niall taught her the names of the plants that were native to Tír na nÓg, and showed her how to make music from the irendal flower, a huge golden plant with petals the shapes of horns. He brought her to a waterfall that fell from the top of a tall tree with diamond-shaped leaves, every branch ending in a clear stream of water. After they’d been outside for a while, he heard his mother calling, and they ran back to the cottage, where a tray of elderberry tarts and a tall pitcher of purple nectar awaited them.

“Can we stay longer?” Eden asked her grandmother between mouthfuls of tart. Riona and Atty shared a delighted glance.

“Of course,” she said. “It must feel good to have someone to play with again.”

“I think Niall is glad for the company as well,” Atty said, reaching over and ruffling her son’s hair.

“Atty, stop it,” Niall said, squirming out from under her hand. Once the last elderberry tarts were gone, the two children raced back into the woods.

They climbed up a tree with thick, curving branches, and crawled out to the edge of one of them to see if they could make it dip down to the ground. It stayed as solid and straight as ever, and Eden wondered if it was enchanted, like the tree in her bedroom. She told Niall all about her tree-house room, which he thought was just as neat as his bedroom—designed to look like the mouth of a dragon. Then she had an idea.

“We don’t have to stay here, you know,” she said. “We could go anywhere.”

Niall leaned in closer, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “You can open a sidh to
anywhere
?” he asked.

“Well, it has to be a place I’ve seen,” she said. “But I’ve seen some pretty cool places.”

“Like where?”

Eden thought. Where was the coolest place she’d ever been? “Well, the first time I opened a sidh it was to Egypt—that’s a place that’s really hot, with big old pyramids.” But Tír na nÓg was probably way older than Egypt, so maybe Niall would think it was boring. “Or there’s this place called Disney World, with all these great rides…but it’s kind of just for humans, I guess. It’s not as good as here. Um…” As Eden thought some more, she realized that she hadn’t actually been to that many cool places—at least not places that would impress her new friend.

“I know!” she said the moment the idea struck her. “Have you ever visited the Merrow?”

“No,” Niall said, his eyebrows lifting in surprise. “I didn’t think they existed anymore. Are you saying you’ve seen them?”

“Yes, and they were very nice to me,” she said. It was true; Queen Deardra and the other Merrow had delighted in plying her with sweets and showing her the wonders of their kingdom. It had all turned out rather badly, of course, but that had been Nuala’s fault, not the Merrow’s. She wondered if they would be happy to see her…or angry because she was a Danann. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all, but the look on Niall’s face was enough to sway her.

“Can we really go see them?” Niall asked, and she nodded fervently.

His eyes were gleaming with excitement, but then he hesitated. “Are we allowed to? I mean, won’t we get in trouble? Should you ask your parents first?”

“My parents aren’t even here,” she said. “They’re off on some mission on Earth, I mean, Ériu. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.” She felt a twinge of guilt at this lie, but what better way to prove she wasn’t human than to show Niall what she could
really
do? “Besides, we don’t need to stay long; we’ll just say hello, and then come right back. Our parents won’t even know we were gone.”

Niall grinned. “I
knew
you were going to be cool! All right, let’s go!” He jumped out of the tree, and—just to show off—Eden made a sidh that brought her from the upper branch where she was sitting to the forest floor.

“I need to think of where we should go,” she said. “It’s probably not a good idea to show up underwater. They have to give you a kiss first so you can breathe.”

“A kiss?” Niall said, screwing up his face in disgust.

“Don’t be a baby. It’s no big deal,” she said. “I know! We stayed in a little hut last time. It was really cool. It looks all run-down from the outside, but on the inside it’s like the world’s best aquarium. You’ll see. Let’s use this rock for the sidh. I don’t need to,” she hastily pointed out. “But it makes it easier.” She placed her hand on a large gray boulder and thought hard of the dilapidated old shack where she and Nuala had spent the night. Then she grabbed Niall’s hand and pulled him through before he could change his mind.

“Where are we?” he called once they had stepped through the sidh. Eden squinted at the shimmering patch of air behind them and it disappeared, like a tiny star collapsing in on itself.

“I told you, we’re near where the Merrow live,” she said, her hair blowing wildly in the biting wind that was coming off the water. They were precariously balanced on the rocky island, in front of the old fishing hut that served as the Merrow’s guest room. It was darker than it had been back in Tír na nÓg, and Eden felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind. She yanked on the door, relieved that it would still open for her. “C’mon,” she said. “It’s just down here.” She pulled open the trapdoor and peered inside, then started to climb down the ladder, Niall just behind her.

When she reached the bottom, she frowned. “It’s changed,” she said.

She didn’t recognize anything from her time here. It was cold, just like it had been outside, whereas before the air in the hut had been warm and comforting. The soft glow had disappeared too—the only light was filtering down from the open door to the hut. There were no trays of food or pitchers of sparkling water. It was a cold and inhospitable place, just as it appeared to be from the outside. She ran over to one of the round windows, hoping that they would at least be able to see an octopus or some of the brightly colored fish she had watched before. But the water outside no longer looked like a tropical paradise. Everything was dark, and she could only make out a few rocks and some waving seaweed. Niall came up beside her. “What are we looking at?” he asked. “Is this some kind of joke?”

Eden felt like bursting into tears. “It was all…different before. Honest!” she said. “There were fish and octopuses and it was really, really pretty!”

“Well, it’s not pretty anymore,” he said. “Just dark. Are you sure we’re in the right place?”

“Yes! I’m totally sure. I wouldn’t have been able to open a sidh here if I didn’t know where we were.”

Niall looked at her skeptically, then shrugged his shoulders. “So I guess it
did
change. I wonder why?”

“I don’t know,” Eden said. “It was only a few months ago. Maybe after Queen Deardra was killed…” She was starting to regret bringing Niall here, even if it had impressed him that she knew the Merrow. He didn’t seem that impressed now, and they might be in real danger. It was, after all, one of her kind who had killed the Merrow queen. Maybe they had forgotten about the candies; maybe they had forgotten that she was innocent. She had been so stupid to come here with Nuala, thinking she would find her father. She’d watched the Tuatha Dé Danann—including her father, though she hadn’t recognized him at the time—and the Merrow do battle while she thrashed about in the water. She’d watched as the queen fell with a dagger in her throat. Then Nuala had pulled her back to the hut, and her mum had appeared out of nowhere to save her, until—

She shook her head to clear it of those horrible memories, memories she had tried to forget. Pressing her face against the glass to look once more, she jumped back with a shriek when something—
someone
—floated by.

It was a Merrow, her hair swirling around her head like a rainbow cloud, her tail a shimmering gold. But she looked wrong—she was mottled with a sickly green, and her eyes and mouth were open, her eyes sightless. She looked even worse than Queen Deardra had before Nuala found the red hat that had restored her to her usual beautiful self.

“Is it…dead?” Niall asked.

“I…I think so,” Eden whispered. A sudden change in the current pushed the Merrow’s body toward them, and they both leapt backward as her bloated face pressed up against the glass.

“Let’s get out of here!” Niall said, his voice going up an octave.

Eden couldn’t agree more. This no longer felt like a harmless adventure. She grabbed Niall’s hand and concentrated with all her might on the air in front of her. As soon as the shimmering patch was big enough, they ran through it, and Eden closed it with more force than necessary, sending small sparks up in the air.

“Why was it dead?” Niall said. His pale skin looked more ashen than usual, and they both sat down hard on the forest floor behind his cottage home.

“I don’t know!” Eden said, trying not to freak out. “They were all fine before! They had an amazing magical underwater kingdom, with all kinds of fish and plants and everything. Now it’s all gone!”

“We should tell someone,” Niall said. “What if no one else knows? They might need help.”

Eden was silent. She knew he was right, but then she’d have to confess that she’d opened a sidh to Earth—and back to the Merrow, of all places. Her parents would be furious, and they’d probably figure out a way to keep her locked in her room forever. Or what if…what if they took away her ability? It had worked on her mum when
she
had been a baby—Gran and Kier had given Cedar the gift of humanity, and it had masked her Danann talents. Could they do that to her?

“I don’t…I don’t think we should,” she said in a small voice.

Niall was watching her shrewdly. “You’re worried you’ll get in trouble,” he said, and she nodded meekly. “I don’t want you to get in trouble, and I would love to keep using the sidhe. But that Merrow was
dead
. We need to do something.” He cocked his head to the side and frowned, as if he were thinking hard. Eden thought it made him look rather grown up. Finally he met her eyes again, and said, “You know Toirdhealbhach, right? The healer?”

“Yeah, but I just call him Felix. He’s like my dad’s best friend.”

Niall laughed. “Felix! That’s an odd name. All right, let’s call him that. Anyway,
my
father is also a healer, so they work together sometimes. And sometimes they get me to run messages for them and stuff. I’m not supposed to tell anyone this, but I know that Felix has a gancanagh in his home, and that he’s really sick. Felix has gone away for a few days, so my father is looking after this guy.” Niall puffed out his chest.

“What’s a gancanagh?” Eden said, stumbling over the strange word.

“It’s kind of like a Merrow—I don’t mean the tail and stuff, but it’s kind of in between us and the humans. It’s a magical creature, but it lives on Ériu.”

“So…what about him?”

Niall shrugged. “I dunno. I was just thinking there might be a connection. Sick gancanagh, dead Merrow, both from Ériu.”

Eden considered this. “Maybe…,” she said. “I know!” she said after a moment. She almost told Niall about Helen and their secret lessons, but stopped herself short. “There’s someone I know who can help us. She knows a lot of stuff about Ériu.”

Niall looked at her suspiciously. “Yeah? You won’t get in trouble, though?”

“I don’t think so. Look, why don’t you see what you can find out from your father? Try and listen in on more of his conversations. And I’ll ask my, um, friend what she knows about the Merrow. We’ll be detectives, like Nancy Drew!”

“Who?”

“Never mind.”

They headed back to the house just as Riona emerged from the back door.

“I was just about to call for you,” she said when she caught sight of them. “Did you have fun?”

Eden nodded her head vigorously. “Oh yeah, tons of fun!”

“What did you do?” Riona asked.

“Oh, nothing. Just climbed trees and stuff. Had races.” Eden and Niall glanced at each other from the corners of their eyes.

“Yes, your mother tells me you are quite the runner,” Riona said, giving Niall an approving smile. He muttered something that sounded vaguely like “thank you” and shuffled his feet.

Riona and Eden stayed for dinner with Atty and Niall. A couple of hours later, when Eden thought she possibly couldn’t eat another bite, Riona said it was time to go.

“I could…you know,” Eden said, giving her grandmother a hopeful look.

“Make a sidh? You could, indeed, since you have a guardian with you. But I thought you might like to ride back,” she said with a wink.

“I would, but maybe next time?” Eden said.