Sean now understood what he must do. He must face the Shining Man and the Bad Thing one more time. They still scared him, but he somehow knew that having reached the nadir of fear that night, he would never be that terrified of them again. He had confronted them and survived. And he knew he must do it once more, only this time it would be battle. Patrick’s fate depended upon it.
Sean knew there was only one person who could possibly understand what the boys had faced. Sean raced through the woods. Running the entire way, he was soon pounding on the door of Barney Doyle’s workshop.
The door opened and Barney looked down at Sean. “Here then, what’s the ruckus?”
Sean blurted, “Barney, it was the Shining Man! Everyone thinks me and Patrick just got sick. But it was the Shining Man. He and the Bad Thing came into our room with these two things that looked like us and they took Patrick. They’d have taken me, but I had the stone—” Sean stopped when he saw another figure move in the darkness behind Barney. Aggie Grant came forward, a concerned expression on her face. “What is this?” she said.
Sean backed away, but Barney put a hand on his shoulder and said, “It’s all right, boy. Come in.”
Sean allowed himself to be steered into the shack and saw that Aggie had been consulting a large notebook. He glanced at her, and Barney said, “Miss Grant’s dropped by on her way to your home, to listen to some more tales, Sean.”
“What did you say about a Shining Man, Sean?” asked Aggie patiently.
Sean looked at Barney, who never took his eyes from the boy. Quietly the old handyman said, “The Amadán-na-Briona.”
Aggie spoke softly. “The Fool?” Her eyes were wide with disbelief. “You can’t be serious. Patrick is ill from a fever.”
Barney ran his hand over his face, showing uncertainty, then he spoke, his voice low and controlled, but intense with an impatient, frustrated tone neither Aggie or Sean had heard before. “Aggie Grant, there are truths you’ll never find in books, and that’s a fact. God has a plan, and it’s only those of us who are filled with pride who think we know what that plan is. You come around and ask to hear stories of the Good People.…” He paused, as if struggling for words. “But what you don’t understand is that the stories aren’t … made up. They’re stories told and retold because they teach. They teach us how to live with the Good People. They’re stories told first by people who met the Good People”—his voice lowered—“and lived through the meeting.”
Aggie’s expression was clearly one of disbelief. “Barney,” she said softly, in wonder, “you don’t honestly believe the old tales, do you?” The man’s face was set in a resolute mask, showing he did believe, as he nodded his head once. Aggie looked at Sean and said, “I think I should take you home.”
Sean made as if to bolt. “No! I’ve got to talk to Barney. Please.” Sean pleaded, but Aggie heard an odd note in his voice: Something else was there, a sense of final desperation.
Aggie again looked at Barney, unwilling to accept his statement or Sean’s at face value. “Barney, what stories have you been telling the boys?”
“The more common ones,” he answered frankly, “but nary a word about the Fool. I’d not scare the lads like that. And I still haven’t puzzled out what in fact this Bad Thing might be.”
Aggie sat back on Barney’s stool, her eyes traveling from Sean to Barney and back. Years of teaching had made her sensitive to the frustration encountered by youngsters who feel they are not being listened to. She was thoughtful a long time, then said, “All right, go on.”
Sean said, “The night we got sick, we didn’t get sick. The Shining Man and the Bad Thing came into our room.…” Sean continued until he had finished the narrative of that night.
Aggie listened closely and, when Sean finished, said, “Sean, what did this Shining Man look like?” An intuition told her that whatever else was happening, before her stood not a boy who was simply repeating a tale once or twice heard, or story fabricated to mislead adults, but rather a boy who was revealing something he believed in with conviction. Sean believed he had seen what he said he saw, and Aggie wasn’t about to dismiss something this important to him. Sean described as best he could how the man looked, and the more he spoke, the more she became convinced he had seen either a myth come to life or the most incredible hallucination on record. When he had answered all her questions, her manner was subdued, her voice barely above a whisper. “Barney, this is unbelievable. I don’t for a moment believe the boy actually saw the Amadán-na-Briona. You can’t possibly believe that either.” Her tone was not one of disbelief, but rather a plea that sanity be returned, that this impossible description issuing from the lips of an eight-year-old be a cleverly rehearsed script, a strange, tasteless, and inexplicable joke. If not, the world was an alien place and man a blind creature passing through, ignorant of the dangers at every hand. Aggie’s face was pale as she said, “Can you?”
Barney said, “I can. And I do, Aggie Grant. Your nose is too much in books and not enough in the real world.” He stood and pointed at the window. “Out there is mystery after mystery and wonders hidden by magics so profound all your science can’t describe it. Our history tells of when we came to Ireland: how we found the Firbolg and the Tuatha De Danann already living upon the island, and how we wrested the land from them. The British and their American children have wandered too far from their Celtic roots and the Old Knowledge, the lore before the Church came to save us all. The Britons are one with the Roman, Saxon, and Norman invaders, losing their vision of the past. Many of us Irish have not.”
“But—,” Aggie began.
“No buts, then, if you please, Miss Agatha Grant,” interrupted Barney, his eyes distant as he stared out the dirty window of his shack. “You’ve heard the tales told by the old folks. You’ve written them down, counting them quaint and colorful. You’ve not for a moment asked one person you’ve interviewed if they believed. Have you?”
Aggie shook her head. Where she had thought lived a simple Irishman she discovered resided a man with a deep appreciation of his cultural heritage and more than just passing knowledge of simple folktales. He remembered all he had heard and he had been a good listener. And he passed that lore along. In his own way, Barney Doyle was a bard, keeping ancient tradition alive. “I simply assumed …,” she said weakly.
“Yes, and that’s the word, then, isn’t it? Assumed. You think the old stories nothing but myth and legend. We know they are true,” he whispered. He never took his eyes from the darkening sky outside. “We’ll get some rain soon, I’m thinking.” His voice softened. “What, then, would you say should I tell you I myself once saw the Daonie Sidhe, dancing upon a knoll in the moonlight? A boy I was, not much older than Sean. But I’ll never forget the sight. Both beautiful and terrifying, joyous and sad, all at once, it was. The music so faint it’s a breath on the wind, and the smell of flowers … flowers from another place. Longings and desires I felt, with fear in no small measure.” He crossed himself. “And danger to my immortal soul.
“They are often gone from sight, the Old People, the Good People.” He looked hard at Aggie. “But they are still here, with us. They live in the same world, and it’s foolishness itself to deny the truth because it’s not convenient to believe.”
Aggie felt helpless before the certainty of Barney’s words.
Sean said, “Please, Barney, we’ve got to get Patrick back. Where can I find him?”
Barney stared out the window as the afternoon sun turned the sky the color of yellow roses between the growing black clouds. “He’s with the Fool, lad, and for all of that, he’s as good as lost.”
“Who’s the Fool?” asked the boy, seemingly unwilling to accept Patrick as being irretrievable.
Barney looked out from under bushy brows, his eyes unreadable. But it was Aggie who spoke. “Your Shining Man, Sean. The Amadán-na-Briona, leader of the Dark Folk. He’s the head of what the Scots call the Unseely Court, the evil ones among the Sidhe.”
S
ean, who’d been squirming, said, “But why’d he take Patrick?”
Aggie watched Barney’s face as he looked at Sean, then her again. “Because they’re a wicked and perverse fellowship, Sean. ’Tis certain, the boy’s been a-changelinged.”
“A changeling?” said Aggie. “But he’s in the hospital.”
“That’s not Patrick in that room,” said Barney firmly. Sean looked up at Barney and tears formed in the boy’s eyes. Relief flooded through him. At last he had found somebody who understood. Barney knew that the thing in the hospital that looked like Patrick wasn’t Sean’s brother.
Aggie stood up. “This is all too much for me to take, Barney Doyle. I’ll not sit and listen to this as if we were talking of a kidnapping.” She was obviously disturbed by Barney’s words, and she fought to regain her composure. “Come on, Sean, I think you should be at home. The weather’s turning, so I’ll drive you.”
Sean stood up as if making to bolt to the door, but Barney put a restraining hand upon his shoulder. “Nay, lad, you’d do well to go.” Barney’s eyes seemed to shine, as if on the verge of tears. “There’s nothing for it. Nothing you can do. There is no way to go after Patrick.” He waited until Aggie had retrieved her purse and notebook, and opened the door for them. After they had gone through, Barney closed it softly. Then he said quietly, “We’re past the age of heroes, Sean. ’Tis a sad thing to be admitting, but it is the truth.”
Sean thought to run away, but Aggie had a lifetime of dealing with boys of all sizes and temperaments, and a light touch upon his shoulder stilled the impulse to rebel in the usually obedient boy. He quietly got into her car and allowed himself to be taken home.
22
Sean brooded in his room as the setting sun passed behind the old tree outside, throwing twisted shadows across the wall. He had been quietly desperate since coming back from Barney’s the day before. Luckily his mother had still been napping when Aggie brought him home. Aggie had been quiet the entire way back. She had not said a word to Gabbie about what had taken place at Barney’s, as if to speak of the conversation would give weight to Barney’s words. But it was obvious even to someone as young as Sean that she was deeply disturbed by what Barney had said, and she did urge Gabbie to keep Sean home until he’d fully recovered. After she had left, Sean begged his sister not to tell on him. Gabbie agreed not to say anything in exchange for his promise not to leave the house until Gloria said it was all right.
His father was due home for dinner in a short while, after visiting the thing they thought was Patrick and checking some stuff with the doctors. Sean fumed as he rolled over. He had one last shot at getting out, and he knew that tonight was the night he had to act. He just wished for a chance to talk to Barney again, rather than having to wait until everyone was asleep. That would give him too little time, he was certain. He didn’t understand it all, but he had figured out enough to know he had to act tonight, and the later he got started, the less time he had left to do something about Patrick.
The door downstairs shut and Sean jumped up. He hurried down the hall and the stairs to where his father stood. Phil looked at his son and smiled. “Hi, sport. How’re things?”
Sean steeled himself against looking too anxious. He gave his dad a quick hug, then made his pitch. “Mom won’t let me go to the Halloween party tonight.” His tone made it seem the most unreasonable sort of confinement, and was just short of whiny.
Phil moved slowly toward the kitchen. “Look, there’ll be other parties and … well, your mom’s pretty upset these days.” He stopped and studied the face of his son. With all Phil’s worry about Patrick, he had all but ignored Sean. After a moment he said, “But then, it’s been no picnic for you, has it?”
An odd expression crossed Phil’s face and he pushed open the door to the kitchen. Gloria and Gabbie were both readying dinner. Greetings were exchanged, and Gabbie said, “Jack called. He’s on his way down, hangover and all. He’ll be here in an hour.” Jack had passed his orals Friday afternoon, advancing him to candidacy for a doctorate. He had called to tell her and had wanted to come back at once, but Gabbie had overruled him, insisting he let some of his grad student friends take him out to celebrate, a party that had lasted until late. As a result, Jack didn’t get started until Saturday afternoon on some paperwork that needed to be on his adviser’s desk first thing Monday morning. That had made driving down to Pittsville on Saturday out of the question. Gabbie had wished she had been with him, but had refused to leave, with Gloria in such rugged shape.
Phil said, “Honey, I think it’s all right if we let Sean go to the party tonight.”
Gloria’s head jerked up, a panic-stricken look in her eyes. Before she could object, he said, “He’s been fine for a couple of days now, and it would do him good to get out.” Sean threw Gabbie a pleading look, silently begging her not to speak of his encounter with Aggie the day before. Gabbie shook her head slightly and winked, then turned her attention back to the salad.
Gloria seemed on the verge of saying something, but instead turned back to the cooking, saying, “Well … he doesn’t have a costume.”
Sean jumped in. “I can go as a pirate! I can put a bandanna around my head and tuck my pants in my rain boots, and wear one of Dad’s belts like this”—he made an over-the-shoulder motion—“and Gabbie can make me a scar with lipstick. Please, Mom.”
Gloria seemed close to tears, and Phil calmly said, “It’s at the school. They’ll be supervised and he’ll be home by nine. How about it?”
Gloria struggled within herself. Something was building around her and she couldn’t understand what it was. Her intellect said there would be no real harm in letting Sean attend a supervised school function, but her gut, her instinct, said there was a terrible risk. Yet she couldn’t articulate those terrible fears, so at the last she simply nodded, her face drawn and ashen. Sean leaped from the chair, yelling, “Thanks, Mom!” and dashed through the door.
Phil went to his wife and hugged her. “We’ll drop him off on our way to the hospital.”
Gabbie said, “And Jack and I can pick him up.” Gloria put her head on Phil’s shoulder a moment. She almost understood, recognition hung just beyond her grasp: Something of awesome power moved in the night, something that had entrapped her family. They were overwhelmed by ancient mysteries, dark magics and lost gold, and creatures not of this earth. Those creatures had taken one of her sons. And with dread certainty she knew that tonight she would lose the other. But she also knew she was powerless to do anything, and those around her, those she loved most, could never understand. All this knowledge was tantalizingly close to being articulated, but something kept that knowledge from coalescing, from becoming concrete enough to be shared. She simply closed her eyes a moment, then with a sigh of resignation said, “Gabbie, will you take the chicken out when it’s done? I think I’m going to lie down for a little while before dinner.” She turned away from her husband, opened the door to the hall, and left.
23
Sean walked out of the house between his parents. He was pleased with the makeshift costume. One of Gabbie’s old white blouses gave just the right effect, had the right collar and everything, and with the puffy sleeves rolled up looked just like a pirate shirt. His jeans were tucked into his rain boots and an old belt of his dad’s hung over one shoulder in a fair imitation of a baldric. A red bandanna was tied around his head in pirate fashion. Gloria opened the car door, saying nothing as they got in the car, her eyes red-rimmed. She had slept through dinner, but had risen to join her husband and son. She said little, just repeatedly cautioning Sean to be careful. Sean didn’t notice, as he was busy praying no one remarked on his funny walk, for concealed in his right boot was his father’s silver letter opener.
Phil kept up a light banter, as if forcing normalcy on his family. Sean answered his father’s questions as they drove to the school, making small talk. Phil attempted to reestablish some sense of normalcy with his son—his surviving son, he thought grimly. Rain
began to fall again, and Phil said, “You should have brought a jacket, son.”
“I’ll be okay,” Sean insisted. “It’s only a little way from the street to the auditorium, and I’ll wait inside till Jack an’ Gabbie get me.”
“Okay, buccaneer,” said Phil, with forced joviality. He pulled up to the curbside before the elementary school and watched as Gloria got out, allowing Sean to leave. As he started past his mother, she reached out and grabbed him, and for one panic-stricken moment Sean was afraid she’d drag him back into the car. Instead all she did was hug him fiercely, all the while silent, then without a word she let him go and stood in the misting drizzle watching as Sean walked to the auditorium. With a sudden sense of melancholia, Phil felt a tear run down his cheek, and he was visited with the feeling that he was seeing Sean for the last time. He shrugged off the feeling as being due to too much stress and fatigue over the last week, and after Gloria was again in the car, he drove off.