On dark evenings, Eoin could hear their voices through his living-room window. He was sure they were in his house while he slept; their high-pitched drawl filled his nights. When he rose each morning, he was confronted with the most persuasive evidence. There was butter sliding down the walls of his kitchen, rashers of raw bacon were gathering dust on the floor, he almost slipped on a puddle of milk as he leant to close the door of his refrigerator. Often the spindles of chairs were broken, cracked when his furniture was tossed to the four corners of the room. Titters followed him as he sighed and began to bring order back to his home.
It was the sidhe, and as he dropped the eggshells into the bin, he again thought of leaving the farming life. A look out his kitchen window was the timely reminder he needed: the lush farmland around him. Seafoam, Emerald and Olive – the swathes of green were interrupted by patches of yellow at this time of year, evidence of a late harvest. He looked at the hillsides closest to sparkling blue ocean, to grassland soaking in the last rays of this year’s sun. A few of the fields had rocky outcrops, or wooded areas filled with trees clinging to the red and gold remnants of this year’s leaves.
Then his eyes returned to the tree that stood alone in the vegetable patch beside his garden.
The fairies lived in the hawthorn tree; that was known by everyone in the area. The farmer who sold the land to Eoin had lived with the fairies for years and had managed to avoid trouble. But Eoin had done something they didn’t like. He called Niamh – his friend had a shop in the village only a few miles from Eoin’s farm, nestled where the mountains fell into the sea. She was considered an authority on fairy folk and their deeds.
‘There’s no point trying to talk to them. I’ve never heard of the Sidhe talking to a person directly.’ There was a twinkle in her eye when she spoke about them, as if she were talking about her own family. ‘But at least their message is clear; stay away from their space or leave.’
‘I can’t leave,’ complained Eoin. ‘This farm is a part of me too.’
‘You can’t go on like this,’ she said to Eoin. ‘Are you sure you can’t remember doing anything that might upset them?’
‘I don’t think I’ve done anything,’ said Eoin, scratching his chin, ‘although I kept some cattle on that old vegetable patch where the fairy tree is, but that was years ago and only for a month or two.’
Naimh raised an eyebrow. ‘That could be it. You never know what could offend the Other Crowd.’
‘Are you serious? I started growing vegetables there again, mostly carrots and turnips, just to try and get on their good side. I can’t do anything with that field. I should cut down that tree; let them go and bother someone else.’
‘Shh! You’ve got to be careful that they don’t even hear you say that. You can’t cut that tree yourself; you know that could bring the kind of trouble that people never come back from.’
‘Is there nothing that I can do?’
‘Well, the fairies will only get revenge on the person who does the cutting. You shouldn’t even think about cutting down that tree yourself, but if you can get someone else to do it for you, that’s a different story. You said you mainly plant turnips and carrots in that field?’
‘And a few pumpkins close to Halloween.’
‘That could be the problem too,’ said Niamh. ‘The Sidhe only like Irish things, so maybe Halloween pumpkins offend them.’
‘I prefer to carve a turnip too, but there’s money in pumpkins.’
‘Is that a fact?’ Niamh leaned over and whispered something into Eoin’s ear.
A car pulled up in front of Eoin’s house; Sarah got out of the driver’s door. She sighed, then stretched until her bones cracked. Her glance took in a whole scene, the withered flower stalks swaying in the breeze, the hilltops shrouded in mist. Her glance changed, lingering on Eoin’s ramshackle cottage for a minute; its crooked roof, crumbling plaster and front door that didn’t quite fit. That door creaked as it opened; Eoin stepped beyond the threshold to ask why she was there.
Sarah pointed to her little boys, who were looking out the back windows of the sedan, comfortable in their car seats. ‘It’s rare for Halloween to fall on such a nice day, so I thought I would take the boys for a drive in the country. But by the time we get back there will be no good pumpkins left in the supermarkets. I noticed the sign at the bottom of your lane; that you have pumpkins to sell? I was wondering if you would let the boys pick one or two.’
‘That’d be grand,’ said Eoin. ‘It’ll cost £50 for each pumpkin though.’
She looked stunned by the price, her eyes wide. ‘An okay…okay, but only because the boys want them so much. Picking their own pumpkin is all they’ve talked about for the past half hour.’
‘Well, if you don’t like the price, maybe you can do something else for me.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘I pulled my shoulder this morning, but there is one more job that needs to be done before the weather turns. There’s a tree in the middle of that field that must be cut down. I hate to ask; but is there any way that you could cut it down for me?’
‘I’d be glad to do it; it’ll give the boys a chance to see a woman at work.’
Sarah started to laugh, so Eoin laughed in return.
‘It’s small,’ said Eoin, ‘so even you should be able to manage. I’ll get you gloves and tools to cut the tree. You’ll need a saw for the trunk, but it’s not too wide so that shouldn’t take long. If you find it too tough just knock on my door and let me know.’
‘Thanks, but I’ve cut down shrubs in the garden before,’ said Sarah. ‘It’ll be similar, won’t it?’
Eoin smiled. ‘I’m sure it will be, and you might want to try trimming back a few the branches first, that will make it easier.’
Sarah rolled her eyes as she walked away from Eoin.
The tree cast the only shadow in the field that stretched around it. Sarah could immediately see why the farmer wanted the hawthorn cut down. It was much taller than she was and had bushy and dense foliage that would trap most of the sunlight that fell upon it. The small, waxy leaves of the evergreen allowed the tree to cast a solid shadow all year round. Beyond that shadow, the rest of that field was dotted with plump, unblemished pumpkins nestling on verdant beds.
Basking in the waning sun of autumn, the pumpkins were packets of the sunshine absorbed that summer, keeping the memory of the season alive as winter closed in. Most of the rows were now empty, only suspiciously large patches of grass showed where the pumpkins had been, but enough of the orange spheres remained to entice any curious passerby that was brave enough to inquire further. Looking at the field, Sarah couldn’t help but imagine all the things the farmer could do with if not for that tree.
As soon as Sarah opened the gate, the silvery steel barrier swung towards the hedgerow. Sarah’s sons rushed past her and ran towards the largest pumpkins that remained. The pair were almost perfect, fat ovals lying beside each other, close to a small stream that trickled down the field, ran beneath a stonewall and off to the lower reaches of the meadow and towards the briny waters of the bay. Sarah stopped for a moment and called to her sons before they ran too close to the small cliff where the fields fell to meet the road. ‘Stop for a moment, you’re in a very special place. Farmers and farmland have shaped this country.’ She knew they were too young to truly understand, but she liked saying it.
‘Can we get these ones, please?’ said Cormac, bending down to smooth the sides of the giant pumpkins with a reverential touch.
‘Good choice,’ said Sarah. ‘I think that might be the best one. But before we can take it, we must do our job for the farmer. What was it he said?’
Her two children responded in unison, ‘Please, cut down that tree.’ The boys pointed towards the hawthorn.
‘That’s very good,’ said Sarah brandishing her saw. ‘Do you want to watch me cut it down? It’s only a hawthorn tree so it shouldn’t take very long.’
Eoin had never been the kind of person to take chances. ‘If you have time and it’s not too much to ask, there’s one more thing you can maybe do for me,’ he had said, ‘if you could throw the tree into the barn at the back of the field. It’s wooden, with a black felt roof, and red paint peeling off it. You can’t miss it; it’s at the foot of the mountain. There’re a few hay bales, and mice I’m sure, but they won’t harm you. Just throw the tree anywhere, I only want to keep it out of the wind. It’s supposed to be stormy tonight.’
‘Don’t you worry about that,’ replied Sarah. ‘I’ll make sure it’s safely stowed.’
She couldn’t let her sons see her leaving the job incomplete. It started raining just as she began dragging the tree away; she was sure she could hear someone muttering words too distant to be more than an unintelligible hiss. She even turned towards her sons and told them to stop their joking.
‘I can hear the noise too, mummy,’ said Cormac, ‘but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. I think that man hiding behind the pumpkins might know.’
‘A man hiding behind the pumpkins? You know the pumpkins aren’t big enough for anyone to hide behind.’
‘But I did see him, mummy.’
‘Don’t be silly, Cormac. I’ll have to talk with you after I get this tree inside. Maybe I should leave you in there with all the mice, would you like that?’
‘Maybe they’re the ones who are being noisy!’
The soft patter of raindrops on the roof of the shed was a relentless slow clap. Sarah’s battle with the errant branches of hawthorn eased; she had laid the tree to rest on the straw-covered floor of the barn. Cormac complained of muffled voices behind the stacks of haybales.
‘It’s probably just mice,’ said Sarah. ‘I’ll climb up and look over the top to make sure they’re behaving themselves. The rain has stopped now, so we can collect our pumpkins and then go back to the car.’
‘Hurry, mummy,’ said Cormac, ‘we’ll have to carve them soon.’
The bales swayed back and forth as she began to climb. It seemed that every yellowed stalk either stabbed her palm or else came away from the bale and threatened to send her tumbling to the musty husks that littered the floor of the barn.
‘Make sure that you and your little brother stay back,’ she called to Cormac.
‘It’s okay, mummy,’ he replied. ‘Me and Stephen are looking at the pumpkins from the door.’
‘That’s good. Just stay there.’ Sarah looked left and right for any signs of mice before she moved on. ‘I don’t see any mice, they’re probably all sleeping in their nests.’
When she reached the top, she looked over the bales. It was another world on that side, but she could only perceive that change through the hairs standing on the nape of her neck.
‘The Sidhe,’ she said before she could stop herself.
Before her was something like an amphitheatre, although made with bricks of straw. Rows of empty seats, empty steps and empty stalls. The stocky creatures were all gathered around one central, elevated bale, where one body lay serene, a face with thin lips almost grinning.
The woman was only around 1foot tall, as were the people in the crowd surrounding her. The Other Crowd murmured and moaned. The smiling supine woman held a bouquet of wildflowers in the hands across her chest.
Sarah’s vision shifted from sharp to blurred and then back again. The flowers withered and were replaced by branches of hawthorn breaking through the dried stems. The woman’s mouth had dropped; her face became expressionless.
A man with white robes stood at the woman’s head. He said some words that Sarah knew but heard when she was too young to remember clearly. She remembered smoke and incense, a flash of gold, and something lost. Some of those gathered grabbed each limb of the miniature Sarah and carried her away from the central bale. Sarah thought of following, but her feet turned to lead in the next moment: Cormac was dragged in kicking and screaming to take his mother’s place.
Sarah hoped that this was an effigy too, or perhaps a trick of the mind, but in her heart she knew better. The figure wearing the white robe blew smoke in his face and Cormac closed his eyes and went limp.
Sarah pulled herself out of her malaise. She had to save both her sons, but Cormac had to be first. She thundered down the side, bales crashed around her. She pushed people aside before grabbing the wrist of Cormac’s drooping arm. She slapped his face, doing the something her panic demanded. When he opened his eyes, Sarah threw him over her shoulder and ran. She picked up her younger son and carrying one son under each arm she ran for her car, cursing the wily farmer.
Eoin went over to his kitchen window when he heard the noise. The crash and the hurried footsteps of activity were coming from the old barn where he kept straw for bedding. He’d seen Sarah carry the hawthorn inside, he had an inkling he might see her dashing out of there shortly after she entered. But that had been hours ago; it was dusk now. He’d almost forgotten she was there.
Eoin winced as he heard her bloodcurdling screams. He hadn’t anticipated that much noise, or that when Sarah reappeared, she’d be carrying a pumpkin under each arm.
She was running all over the field, as if she was trapped in a maze that Eoin couldn’t see. Her boys were clinging to the safety of the barn but calling desperately to their mother, telling her to come back, telling her not to be scared. But the Sidhe had taken Sarah to their own place, and only they had the skills to alter her fate. Eoin shook his head as he returned to the table from the kitchen window, thinking it was probably sensible to wait until the spring until he decided what to do what with the field; the fairies might’ve found peace in a new home by then. Then he smiled, thinking that he would sleep well, knowing that he was truly alone for the first time.
Sarah ran until her last breath, but Eoin’s field was always just out of reach. She ran along the branches of the Hawthorn, trapped in the branches by thick waxy leaves, beset by spikes on all sides, freedom no more attainable than the waters of the babbling brook.
Ciaran McLarnon is a writer from Ballymena, Northern Ireland. He has several short stories published and twice been finalist for the Adelaide literary award and was most recently published in ‘The Galway Review’ with the short story ‘A Lesson Uncovered the Trees’. He has written a novel, ‘New Shores’, published by Atmosphere Place, that was reviewed and publicised by The Academy of the Heart and Mind. . For further information visit http://www.ciaranjmclarnon.blog.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 