do you want?’
Ruby squirmed and then Macha pulled her hand away in pain. Ruby had obviously bitten her. As she started to scream again Macha gave her a hard slap. Shock and then tears came to the poor kid’s face. She went instantly from the woman-child that bosses me around to an all-too-fragile twelve-year old.
‘What I want,’ Macha said, looking at her bitten hand, ‘is this child to be silent.’ She reached into her pocket and produced a handkerchief. ‘Come over here, Conor, and gag her.’
I almost laughed. There was no way I was going to do that but even as the smirk hit my face my body stood up, took the handkerchief from my puppet-master grandmother and pulled it across the child’s mouth.
Macha said, ‘Make sure it’s tight,’ and, despite every cell in my brain telling me to stop, I pulled it tighter before I tied it in the back. A muffled cry of pain came from Ruby and the only thing I could do was say ‘Sorry.’
Macha went back down onto the floor and recommenced ripping up the skirting boards. I looked to the door and felt that with Macha’s attention elsewhere I could pick up Ruby and make a break for the door, but when I tried Macha said, ‘Don’t even think about leaving.’
‘What are you doing?’ I tried to ask and was surprised to find I could.
Macha didn’t stand up but from the floor said, ‘Do you know whose room this is?’
‘Yes, it’s my mother’s.’
‘Do you know whose room this was before your mother?’
‘No.’
There was another sound of splintering and wrenching of wood. I heard Macha exclaim, ‘Ah ha,’ followed by the sound of scraping. Macha then reappeared from behind the desk in a plume of dust and loudly dropped on it – a leather-bound manuscript. ‘This room was once Ona’s lair.’
Holy cow, I said to myself. A manuscript chock full of Ona’s predictions. As if her prophecies hadn’t caused enough problems – here were a stack more.
‘Where are they keeping Lord Lugh?’
I didn’t want to answer her but found myself saying, ‘The guest chambers, one floor down.’
‘Come. Bring the girl and make sure you are not seen.’
My possession was the strangest thing. I was still able to do ordinary things as long as they didn’t seem to contradict the will of Macha. Before we left the room I picked up Ruby’s sunglasses and put them on her face. I pushed her hair back and told her everything would be OK just before I gruffly dragged her by the arm. I stuck my head through a crack in the door and saw a guard on his usual patrol. I tried to shout to him but instead I unwillingly ducked back inside the room and waited for him to pass. When he had gone I led us past my room and down the servants’ staircase.
The floor had been cleared of all guests except Lugh. There were two guards posted outside the door and another two walking a patrol. Macha waited for one of the patrol guards to come past and blew him hard into the wall with her fan. I was surprised his head didn’t crack open.
Macha pointed to the unconscious guard and said, ‘Take his sword and kill the other one.’
‘No,’ I said. I was proud of myself when that came out. All the way down the steps I had been incanting a Fili meditation chant and was beginning to think I was getting control again.
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