The Unicorn Hunter (2 page)

Roisin stretched out a hand to the animal, which snuffled her palm with a velvety nose.

‘He's so lovely,' she breathed. ‘Can we keep him?'

‘What, one of the pillars of old magic that keeps the world propped up?' asked Maddy. ‘Don't be soft.'

‘Oh no,' said Danny. ‘Oh no, oh no, ohno, ohno, ohno.'

‘Will you
please
get it together?' hissed Maddy.

‘I am not going through all this again,' said Danny. ‘Get rid of it, get it out of here! How are we going to explain a unicorn in the coal shed?'

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the back door opened and they heard the crunch of feet on gravel. They looked at each other in panic. ‘Now what?' squeaked Roisin. Granny was walking toward them holding the coal scuttle. She frowned when she saw them.

‘Don't be thinking of playing in there now – it's filthy,' she warned. ‘Danny and Roisin, your mother will scalp the pair of you if you ruin your clothes, and I won't be too happy with you either, Maddy.' Roisin and Danny looked on in amazement as Granny walked straight through the unicorn, filled the scuttle and walked back out again, closing the door in the animal's face. ‘I mean it – play either in the garden or in the house, but stay out of here.'

They trudged obediently behind her in stunned silence but huddled in the kitchen to talk in private. The unicorn had nudged the shed door open and they
watched him sniff around the garden while George stared at him from the safety of his kennel with all the intensity of a short-fusing terrier brain.

‘How come Granny was able to walk through him like that?' asked Danny.

‘She's been doing it all day,' said Maddy. ‘Remember what Finn said? They are more symbol than animal and if you don't believe in what they stand for then you can't see them.'

‘But we can see him and touch him?' said Roisin.

‘That's because we're faerie-touched,' said Maddy. ‘We see things like him whether we want to or not.'

‘What's he doing here? Why is he hanging around?' asked Roisin.

‘I don't care. I'm having nothing to do with this!' said Danny as he began to walk toward the sitting-room door. ‘It can't be good, it never is. This lot don't just drop in for a visit. It wants something, and I am not getting dragged into anything this time.'

‘It's not an “it”,' yelled Maddy, just as the door was yanked open.

Aunt Fionnula stood framed in the doorway, her pastel-pink shell suit throbbing faintly in the soft glow of the sitting-room lamps. Her gimlet eyes were fixed, as usual, on Maddy. ‘What are you making all this racket
for?' she barked. ‘We can barely hear ourselves think in here!'

‘I'm not in here on my own, you know,' said Maddy.

Aunt Fionnula leaned down to glare into Maddy's face.
Amazing
, thought Maddy.
The old wagon already looks like she's sucking on a lemon. Pucker up a bit more and she'd look just like a cat's bum.
She bit the inside of her cheeks to stifle a nervous giggle.

‘
My
children have been properly raised,' said Aunt Fionnula, hiking an anorexic eyebrow so high in her disapproval and contempt that it almost disappeared into her solid mass of hair. ‘
My
children know better than to run around shouting and roaring and making a show of themselves. The fact that you cannot says something about you, young lady.' She raised a bony finger and began to poke Maddy in the chest, a painful jab emphasizing each word. ‘You. Are. An. Ignorant. Bad-tempered. Little. Brat.'

Maddy gritted her teeth. Her legs shook and her blood boiled as she stared up at Aunt Fionnula. Out of the corner of her eye she could see her grandparents and her cousins looking around to see what all the fuss was about. Granny sighed and came over to them, as Aunt Fionnula raised her finger for another jab.

‘Maddy, love, why don't you take George for a walk
around the square and leave us to talk for a little while?' she asked.

‘I haven't done anything! Why is it every time someone starts on me,
I
have to take the dog for a walk?' said Maddy. She jerked her chin in Aunt Fionnula's direction. ‘Make her walk him.'

‘Please, Maddy, just for a little while,' soothed her grandmother, as she took Maddy's jacket from a hook behind the back door and ushered her out into the back yard. ‘Stretch his legs before dinner.'

Maddy looked over her shoulder at her, her green eyes brimming with tears.

‘Why don't you ever take my side?'

Granny sighed. ‘It's not a questions of sides, love.'

Maddy gritted her teeth against the tears that threatened to spill, yanked a rather surprised George out of his warm kennel to tie the collar around his neck, and then stormed out of the back garden. She scowled and scuffed at the ground with her tatty trainers, dragging the terrier along on his lead. George, his brown eyes bulging, kept trying to twist his body round to stare at the unicorn that followed them. The stallion was oblivious to the odd person that walked through him. Maddy didn't bother to look back at the little horse. Instead she hunched her shoulders underneath her jacket and lingered beneath a tree overlooking the square. The
wind was bitter and the low village buildings cowered beneath needles of icy rain that began to hammer down from the leaden sky. Maddy sighed and zipped her jacket tighter to her throat. The front of her hair was already soaked where her hood crept back from her forehead. Soon Roisin and Danny came panting up.

‘We got away as soon as we could,' said Roisin.

‘It wasn't easy – Mum's not too keen on us hanging out with you,' said Danny. Roisin glared at him and rammed an elbow into his ribs. He gave a yelp of pain.

‘What's your problem? She knows Mum doesn't like her,' he said.

‘There's no need to spell it out,' said Roisin. ‘Anyway, Maddy, what's going on? Any idea why our friend here has shown up?'

‘Are you interested?' said Maddy.

‘Of course we're interested,' said Roisin, looking at Danny, who was studying his feet. ‘
Aren't
we?'

‘Yeah,' Danny mumbled, shamefaced. ‘Course I am.'

‘Good,' said Maddy. ‘I think we need to have a chat with Seamus. And we need to find out why the mare isn't here.'

Seamus was one of the Tuatha de Dannan, the powerful faerie gods. He used to be worshipped as Cernunnos, the Horned God, by the Celts. The Tuatha de Dannan had ruled Ireland thousands of years ago, before the Celts had driven them beneath the mounds, banished them from Ireland for their cruelty and greed, confined them to Tír na nÓg except for at Halloween, when time and magic fell into chaos. Maddy figured Seamus's ego was having a hard time letting go of being worshipped as a god, because he still hung around the mortal world in a vastly reduced form when he could have been living it up in Tír na nÓg with the other Tuatha. Humans fascinated him, even if they didn't worship him any more. But looking at his house, Maddy thought he was taking the whole idea of being human just a little too far.

His house was on a dull housing estate on the
edge of the village. Every house there was the same red-brick, plain box. The only thing that set his apart was that it didn't have a car parked on a pitted and stained concrete drive. As Lord of the Forest, Seamus was big into saving the environment, so he walked everywhere.

Maddy rang the doorbell while Roisin and Danny huddled behind her, the tips of their noses red with cold and damp. The unicorn had trailed along behind them all the way through the village and was now lipping half-heartedly at the grass in the neglected front garden. Maddy could only guess what Seamus was going to say when he saw she had one of the unicorns in tow.

He didn't have to say anything. He wrenched the door open before her finger had even left the bell and stared at the animal behind her. The unicorn slowly raised his head and gazed back at the Lord of the Forest. Seamus lowered his head in a bow and the unicorn dipped his in return, before turning back to nibble at a dehydrated fuchsia bush.

‘Inside, the lot of you, now,' Seamus growled.

Maddy swallowed and stepped inside, with Danny and Roisin shuffling in her wake.

The three of them perched on a brown leather sofa, trying to huddle away in the necks of their jackets as
they listened to the door slam and Seamus's heavy tread in the doorway.

He was a big bear of a man and Maddy felt a little claustrophobic as he paced the little sitting room, one hand tugging at his thick greying curls. She didn't have to turn her head to know that, like her, her cousins were staring at the huge spread of antlers that sprouted from Seamus's head, waiting for one of the points to catch on the cheap paper that hung loosely on the walls. She
knew
they were there, but she still found it hard to get used to.

Seamus stopped pacing and loomed over them, the shadow of his antlers throwing a lattice over their faces. They shrank back into the squeaky leather as he glowered at each of them in turn.

‘Why did he come to you? What did you do?' he snarled. ‘
What did you do?
'

Roisin gasped, outraged. ‘We haven't done anything!' she said, before her face clouded over and she turned to look at Maddy. ‘You haven't, have you?'

‘No, I haven't!' said Maddy. ‘He turned up in the garden last night and practically kicked the back door in. I put him in the coal shed …'

Seamus's eyes rolled back in his head and his voice was a horrified whisper. ‘The holy of holies – in a coal shed …'

‘Yes, the coal shed,' said Maddy. ‘And I came to see you as soon as I could. I have no idea why he's here, but I'm guessing it's not good.'

‘No, it's not,' said Seamus grimly. ‘The Tuatha de Dannan and the rest of faerie kind have been out looking for him for hours – some have even endured terrible pain to cross over into this world to find his tracks – and you've had him
locked in a coal shed.
'

‘Well, what was I supposed to do with him?' asked Maddy. ‘Ring up the local stables and book him in as a livery? My Invisible Pony?'

‘The important question is, where is the mare?' interrupted Roisin. ‘She hasn't turned up.'

Seamus threw himself down in a battered armchair and drew his hand across his tired face, scrubbing at his stubble with his palm. ‘We have no idea, which is a big problem because they would never leave each other's side. Not willingly. Something has happened.'

They stared at him and waited for an answer. Outside, the unicorn stallion snuffled at the diamond-pane-effect window.

‘Well?' said Danny, as the silence stretched taut. ‘Where is she?'

Seamus sighed. ‘Mortally injured and hovering on the brink of death.'

Maddy gasped.

‘How do you know?' she asked. ‘Have you found her?'

‘Do you really think that a unicorn could be struck down and the people of magic would not know it?' asked Seamus. ‘We all felt it as soon as she was hurt, and as her life force ebbs she pulls us all closer to the abyss.'

‘Who would do such a thing?' cried Roisin.

‘Is it even possible?' asked Danny.

‘It's hard to do, but it's possible, given a powerful enough weapon,' said Seamus. ‘As to who would want to …' He shook his head and looked at the floor.

‘What abyss?' asked Maddy. Seamus looked at her. ‘What exactly do you mean that she is pulling us all closer to the abyss?'

‘She is balance to her mate and together they are the symbol of the forest, of life in all its forms. She is summer and fertility,' said Seamus.

‘I'm probably being thick but could you spell it out for me?' asked Maddy.

Seamus sighed impatiently. ‘The unicorns are a physical manifestation of magic, the very life force of the forest and nature, which is why they exist in Tír na nÓg and the mortal world at the same time,' he explained. ‘A faerie once made a prophecy as to what would happen should the unicorns die.

‘Famine,' breathed Roisin, her frightened eyes round.

Seamus nodded in agreement. ‘Famine. Cold wet summers, long, long winters and a land that sickens until it dies.' He looked out of the window. ‘It's started already.'

‘“Long, long winters”,' echoed Maddy. ‘Now, who do we know that would be pleased about that?'

‘Liadan,' said Danny, his voice flat with anger. ‘Who else would benefit but a Winter Queen who never wants her power to end?'

‘No!' said Seamus. ‘She wouldn't do this. No faerie could do this!'

‘She's
insane
,' said Maddy. ‘And the mare dying is exactly what she wants. Think about it – famine, chaos. An eternal winter, here and in Tír na nÓg, for the Winter Queen and her court to reign over. If not her, who?'

‘One of you,' said Seamus. ‘A mortal.'

Danny snorted. ‘Yeah, right!'

‘How could it be one of us?' Maddy objected. ‘Most mortals can't even see the unicorns, and the Sighted ones are too scared to go near them. Let's face it, you have them all pretty much under your thumb – no one says squat to a faerie around here, even if they're burning the house down around your ears.'

Seamus let out a roar and banged his fists on the arm of his chair, his fury sending the unicorn squealing and spinning in the front garden. ‘No faerie would commit such a horror – none! Only you mud people could do such a thing.'

Maddy snapped her mouth shut, her lips thin and white with rage.
Mud people
. Now she knew what Seamus really thought of mortals. What he really thought of
her.
His angry words rang in the air as they glared at each other.