Araf was on me in a second. I am always amazed at how fast that Imp can move. He took the sword out of my hand. ‘Don’t,’ he said, ‘you would not last a heartbeat.’
‘Well, at least let me talk to them.’
‘Go ahead, but it will do no good.’
I’ve mentioned before, communicating with a tree is a wonderful experience – most trees, that is. A conversation with a blackthorn is like trying to talk your way past a junkyard dog. It’s just no good. The spikes bore down on me as I touched a branch.
‘You have to the count of ten before I run you through!’ The voice of the tree exploded in my head.
‘Ten!’
‘You have got to let us in!’ I pleaded.
‘Nine!’
‘I’ll buy you some plant food.’
‘Eight!’
‘We’re gonna die out here!’
‘Seven, six …’
‘I have to see Deirdre!’
‘Five, four …’
‘She’s my mother!’
For a second I could have sworn the countdown stopped – then …
‘Three, two …’
I backed off. I didn’t want to find out what happened after One. I have no doubt that that tree would have enjoyed perforating me.
I turned back to the others, expecting to see them busying themselves with some sort of plan, but they were just standing there.
‘The thorns won’t let us pass,’ I said. ‘What do we do now?’
After a long pause, Araf said, ‘Surrender.’
‘What!’
‘We wait behind the arrow shield. When the Banshees come in sight, we drop our weapons and put up our hands.’
‘They didn’t look like the prisoner-taking type,’ I said. ‘What if they attack?’
There was another pause. This time no one said anything.
We stood in a line. Our eyes fixed on the rising path before us. I have always hated waiting. Even if it was for something unpleasant like getting a tooth drilled, I prefer to do it and get it over with. That was not the way I felt now. I had a feeling that getting it over with would be the end of me. I wanted these moments to last forever – and they did. Our pursuers were not hurrying to catch us, they knew there was no place for us to go. I thought about my parents: a mother that I had only briefly known, and a father that I was only now truly starting to understand. If only I could see them again. I had so many questions to ask, so much to say.
I think Fergal must have seen my despair. He leaned into me and said, ‘If you get killed, can I have your shoes?’ And then he flashed me a Fergal smile.
Well, that was it. I tried to keep a straight face but I matched Fergal’s smile and then my shoulders shook and before we knew it, Fergal and I were bent over in hysterics. Araf kept his eyes straight but even he was laughing.
Essa was not amused. ‘Stop it. We have no time for this,’ she said.
‘This is exactly what we have time for,’ I said, while trying to get my composure back. ‘Laughing is as good a way as any to spend your last minutes. How would you prefer to spend yours?’
She looked at me. Our eyes locked and her pupils dilated. At that moment I read her mind and knew the answer to my question. I grabbed her by the shoulders and planted on her the kind of kiss you see in old black and white movies. As usual with women, my mind reading was all wrong. She pushed me back and swung. Not a slap, like in the movies, a left hook that decked me!
I looked up from the ground to see Essa standing over me with her banta stick high in her hand and her eyes raging. ‘We are not going to die!’
I looked past her and saw the Banshees crest the hill. ‘Tell them that.’
BIG HAIR
The Banshees approached slowly. They knew they had us cornered but I think they weren’t sure if we had any long-range weapons. The four of us stood shoulder to shoulder, watching their approach. The closer they got, the less I liked the look of them – it was a motley crew. I doubted any of them had ever signed the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war – as they got closer, I doubted any of them could sign their name. A wild-haired Banshee in the front raised his hand and they all grumbled to a stop. They were close enough now that they could see us clearly. Araf undid his sword belt and dropped it and his staff to the ground. He held his empty hands out in a peaceful gesture. We all did the same.
The Banshee with big hair seemed to be in charge. He saw our surrender and bowed to us formally. He then turned to his troops and barked something. A group of twenty archers jogged to the front and nocked arrows in their bows. Hair Guy turned to us, smiled, and yelled, ‘Fire!’
A wall of arrows came straight at us. I didn’t move a muscle. Partly because Essa said we would be safe behind the shield, but mostly because when a couple of dozen arrows are coming at you, there is no place to run.
The afternoon’s light highlighted the chief Banshee’s hair – it grew straight out of his head, like too much cotton candy. I remembered a pencil I owned when I was a kid. It had a troll doll with hair like that sitting on the top of it. If you rubbed the pencil in between your hands the troll would spin and its hair would shoot straight out. I wished I had a pencil big enough to impale him on. Under that mop of white-streaked black hair I could see the glee in the Banshee’s face. All of this and more went through my mind as the flock of arrows came at me. It felt like an eternity before the missiles hit the shield wall. Just two arm lengths in front of my face, the arrows burst into flames. For a second I thought I was going to be engulfed in fire, then the flames instantly dissipated. I shot a look at Essa who was breathing a sigh of relief. It made me think she wasn’t quite as confident in her wall as she said.
The joy of not being killed by arrows was short-lived. The Banshee archers put away their bows, drew their swords and casually came for us. There was no need to hurry. They had us. I felt like I was in a scene in a cheap movie and I was some helpless girl in a dark alley surrounded by a vicious gang (I always wondered what those girls were doing wandering in dodgy alleys so late at night), but there was no superhero in a leotard to save us, this was the real deal. These guys were coming to kill us.
I know it’s a cliché but my life flashed before my eyes and it annoyed me because it was so dull. The most exciting time of my life had been in the last week – before that, the biggest thrill I had ever had was in a bicycle accident in the sixth grade. I was actually more annoyed than scared. I was annoyed that I wouldn’t see my father again. I had a lifetime of my father making no sense and I was finally understanding him. Sally would never know what happened to me and I would never know whatever happened to her. Maybe she hadn’t even missed me. And I wanted to see my mother again. Finding a mom after all these years was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me – one more hug would have been nice.
Bad-Hair-Day Banshee stopped his troops about twenty-five feet away. He smiled at me and I smiled back.
Fergal leaned in to me and whispered through his teeth, ‘If I go, I’m taking him with me.’
‘I was