Little Boxing Day Surprises

little boxing day surprises 🎁🐱

C H A P T E R   1 4   -   I   d ‘ a o n a r   ( p t   1 )

Earlier that day, Fanore

She listened to his story in silence, blue eyes intent on his face. He was not sure whether she was looking for a slip, a little snap in his speech that would betray a lie, or whether this was how she usually regarded people. When he was done talking she nodded, not saying a thing.

‘So… you don’t believe me,’ he mumbled, a little hurt creeping into his voice.

‘You’re telling me stories, Padrick,’ she reasoned, ‘faeries and monsters and singing demons. These are just things our mind invents to make sense of event that scare us.’

‘I didn’t invent it!’

She sighed, leaning down to rest her chin on her knees. ‘For the longest time I kept painting this image of a monster over the face of someone who hurt me. I kept giving him superpowers and evil red eyes, so one day, if I ever meet someone like him again, I would know. I would see the signs of a monster. But it doesn’t work like that. There are no monsters, Padrick. There are just bad people and they look like anyone else. Is that who took you? An evil person?’

Desperation gripped at his heart. She didn’t believe him. Nobody believed him and nobody ever will. If he told his parents they would get him a psychiatrist and then the kids in school would know and then…

Would it even matter? He wondered. Who were the kids at his school? Who were his parents? As a matter of fact… who was he? Shaking his head he looked up from his palms, meeting her curious gaze with his. ‘No one cares, do they. I’m here. There is a check on a board next to my name. Nobody cares who came back as long as somebody did.’

Her gaze strayed toward a book then. An old, Irish book of fairy tales with ornamental golden ribbon laying across the page. Padrick spoke very little Irish, less than the school required, but he did catch the gist of the illustration under a paragraph. A fairy princess putting a little fairy child into a human cradle while the parents slept.

Órlaith looked away quickly, closing the book with a snap. ‘What are you saying, Padrick?’

‘I’m saying I’m no longer me. I don’t know what I am. And the boy you were looking for that night on the cliffs?’ He waited for her to nod and once she did mumbled, ‘You never found him, Órlaith.’

The voices in his head laughed.

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C H A P T E R   1 7   -   Í o b a i r   ( p t   1 )

The faeries looked like shimmering lights. Bright and shiny, they reminded her of Christmas ornaments. Up there, on their cliff, they seemed unstoppable, burying their talons into the dreams of child and adult alike. Their eyes shone with hunger and jealousy, their feral fangs flashed in the dark. They didn’t turn as she approached. They just grinned, weaving their webs over the village.

The tallest one chuckled lightly when Órlaith stopped, just out of their reach. Her voice sounded guttural, strange to modern ear. ‘Órlaith Hannigan, is it. I have been told you know how to chase me away, little girl.’

‘News travels fast,’ she whispered.

The faery turned then, fixing deep, violet eyes on her face. It was hard to describe that face. While classically beautiful, there was something in her features that send a chill to Órlaith’s bones. It was like watching a mortal car accident happen, right there, in front of you, unstoppable and tragic. ‘Oh, there you are. So pretty. You would do it too, right, baby? You would hurl yourself to your death to stop me. That’s how little you care. That’s how hard this mortal life has been on you.’

Órlaith opened her mouth and just like a mother the fae shush her, waving her hand before her face.

‘Don’t. You can lie to yourself, but do not presume to lie to me. If you really believed it could get better, if you really believed he could save you, you would not be here tonight. You don’t trust him. Good choice, little girl. Because if he were worthy of that trust he would be here by now.’

‘Stop it,’ she hissed, taking an angry step forward. She was getting too close and she knew it. If the fae decided to kill her would be easy. All to easy. ‘Stop trying to get into my head.’

‘I’m not. I’m merely observing. Are you bothered by that, little girl?’ chuckled the fae, ‘By the truth?’

Órlaith snapped. ‘It’s not. The. Truth. You don’t deal truth, fae. You twist and turn it until it turns rotten, but you can’t serve it to me. I know your secrets, I know who you are. And you won’t trick me into giving up.’

‘Trick you?!’ The fae laughed. ‘Oh, babydoll, why would I possibly want to trick you when there are so many reasons for you to give up on your own? Do you even know what I’m offering you? The life you could have if you shed your skin and became mine?’

‘I’m not selling my soul to you,’ snarled Órlaith.

‘I don’t want your soul. All I want is for you to look me in the eyes, little girl, and tell me you wouldn’t be better off here with us. No one would ever dare to cross you, no one would spit in your face and call you a killer again. They wouldn't dare to resent you any longer. You would be a queen and the world would be yours to shape with a single,’ she lifted her finger, ‘wave,’ slashed it through the air, raining sparks, ‘of your hand.’

‘You’re right,’ she nodded. ‘They would not call me a killer again. But for the first time in my life I would actually be one.’

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C H A P T E R   1 4   -   I   d ‘ a o n a r   ( p t   2 )

He woke with a start. His head was swimming with voices. Voices of Padrick’s memories, voices of his monsters, voices of Órlaith telling him he was insane. He scrambled out of the bed that was his and wasn’t, stopping in the middle of the room to look at his hands.

They were hands. He still didn’t grow claws. Yet.

Shivering he walked toward the window, looking down into the dark street. It was just before midnight and the moon was shining bright and full in the skies of darkest indigo. Watching the night he couldn’t shake the feeling of something having changed in Fanore. Something, just under the surface, barely visible to human eye, was creeping by. He wondered whether anyone else noticed. Whether anyone else cared.

Órlaith didn’t. He hoped she would but he could see the doubt shine in her eyes. Despite all her books and faery stories she couldn’t believe him. He was all alone in the world and he had no idea what to do about it.

Going to sleep seemed like an option. Assimilate. Become one of them. Believe in the lie. He was about to. He ever started turning away from the window…

But then he saw her. A girl, little and afraid, not much older than him, walking down the dark road toward the beach. Nobody followed her, nobody stopped her. Nobody even knew she was gone. She was following the music, unable to stop her legs from moving, so very scared of her destination.

He only hesitated for a moment. Something inside, something very wrong and wicked told him to let her go, to go back to sleep and ask ‘mom’ to get him a new game at the shop tomorrow. He pushed it away, hurrying toward his dresser. He pulled out the first hoodie he could find and ran out of the house, chasing the little girl about to lose her soul. He had no idea what he would do once he caught up to her.

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C H A P T E R   1 5   -   I t   a n   t - e o l a s   s i n   a r   f a d   ( p t   2 )

Padrick fell asleep with his nose buried in a volume of old Irish folk tales.

‘I should take the kid home,’ muttered Brian, leaning down to kiss her forehead. ‘I will stop by tomorrow…’

She stopped him, reaching for his hand. ‘Come back after you drop him off. Please. I… I found something in one of the books. I didn’t want to talk in front of him.’ She whispered, nodding toward the sleeping boy.

‘Sure. Go take a nap in the meantime. I will wake you up when I’m back.’

She nodded, handing him the keys and watched him shake the boy awake gently. His big, tired, blue eyes stared at them in defiance when they offered him a ride home, but in the end the exhaustion won and he nodded, taking his jacket and following Brian to his car with slow, stumbling steps.

Órlaith watched them go faking a smile.

The monsters watching her from the shadows snickered.  

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C H A P T E R   1 5   -   I t   a n   t - e o l a s   s i n   a r   f a d   ( p t   3 )

The dream started out slow, slow and vaguely familiar. The scent of sizzling bacon and pancakes. Sweetness of maple syrup on her lips.

She stood in the kitchen of their flat, turning over a pancake. She was humming a melody. Something sweet and innocent. It played a perfect harmony to the giggles behind her.

‘Maya, I will say this one last time, sit down and eat your breakfast!’ Her lips moved, voice box trembled as she formed the words, so strange in her mouth after years of silence.

‘I’m not hungry!’ complained her daughter, sitting back down.

‘Are you not hungry enough for pancakes?’ She put a steaming plate in front of her, joining Maya at the table as little grubby hands reached for the sweet goodness, pulling it into the dark hole that was her daughter’s belly. She never could resist anything sweet.

Watching Maya eat something started to awaken in her, spreading across her consciousness and infecting the candid tranquillity of the dream. She almost had it, almost grasped the thought screaming in her head, but then Maya looked up, blue eyes filled with joy.

‘Mommy?’

‘Yes, sweetie?’

‘I think you’re very smart.’

She huffed a laugh, leaning her chin on her hand. ‘Is that so.’

‘Yes,’ nodded her daughter adamantly. ‘I think you can be waaaaay more happy and not so sad. I think if we are together again you can be as happy as me!’

‘Sweetie, we are together.’

Her daughter considered it for a moment and that voice, that thing that kept yanking at her unconsciousness spoke again. Something was wrong with this. The look in her daughter’s eyes… Something was so wrong with this. ‘I don’t like that man. Or that boy.’

Uneasiness creeped down Órlaith’s spine as she spoke. Still, not quite able to let the dream go she mumbled, ‘Why? They are really nice, you know.’

‘No, they are not! I think we should be alone from now on. Just you and me. Like always, mommy.’

‘But Brian…’ and with that name the thing that was wrong broke out. It shattered that beautiful dream, contorted the sweet music and pushed her out of her chair, stumbling back against the kitchen counters.

The apparition watched her curiously. ‘They are bad for us, mommy. Bad, bad, bad! They keep the good aunties away?’

‘The… good aunties,’ she repeated. She was talking again. On her own. Trapped in a nightmare beyond compare.

‘Yes,’ nodded the ghost. ‘The good aunties are protecting me and all the children! They give us candy and sweet cherries and all the toys you could ever wish for! But the boy didn’t want candy,’ her face sunk, empty eyes seemingly sad. ‘He hurt the good aunty! He scratched her hand and tore her dress and spit at her with spite! Bad, bad, boy! Aunties are here to help the children! Aunties give children toys!’

‘Who are the aunties, Maya?’ she asked.

The ghost girl smiled, pearly white teeth sharp in her pale mouth. ‘Faeries, silly! And they want me to bring you down to them. To help bring joy to all the children, in all the world, in all the universe! And all you have to do is get rid of that boy and come live with me!’

‘Live with you. Live with you, where, Maya?’

‘In the sea, silly!’ The ghost was moving now, coming toward her with careful, predatory steps. She wanted to run, watching it happen, as step by step the ghost approached, reaching it’s slimy, crooked hand for her and all the while, cackling, until the voices distorted together in one monstrous screech, ‘Come home, mommy, come home mommy comehomemommy comehomemommycomehomemommy…’

She woke on a scream, back-paddling on the bed until her back hit the backboard with a sharp bang. For hours to come she couldn’t stop shaking.

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