The Invasion Read online

  ‘Wait!’ Nessa says. Back in her survival-college days, squealing was considered the worst thing you could do to another student, but Nessa is way beyond any of that childish stuff now. ‘She … Angela … is shorter than she was before.’

  ‘What?’ The other girl has no idea what’s going on. The confusion in her eyes leaves Nessa feeling sick.

  But the professor grasps the implications in the time it takes to blink. ‘You’re sure?’

  Nessa nods.

  ‘What are you two talking about?’ Angela hasn’t got a clue, she really doesn’t.

  ‘How …’ the professor asks her, ‘how did you come back here, girl, after your Call?’

  ‘It was the tunnel. I … I followed the Sídhe into it.’

  ‘You didn’t serve out your time in the Grey Land then? It’s supposed to feel like a full day.’

  ‘It … it can’t have been more than an hour … The … the lumps in the trunk … I … I don’t know how anybody lasts longer than that. You … you have no idea.’

  Nessa does, but why contradict her? Everybody’s horror is their own.

  ‘Well,’ says the professor, ‘you’re going back to the Grey Land. That’s what the shrinking is. It’s your body returning to where it belongs.’

  ‘But I belong here.’

  ‘Yes. And you’ll come back here too, I don’t doubt. By the correct route. There are rules, you little eejit. What makes you think you’re the one who’ll get to break them? Our worlds are tangled up in each other. A hundred ways in and a hundred ways out. You were Called. That’s one path to the Grey Land and it has its own rules, and those rules are that when you go, you stay there for a day. Not a piddling little hour! A day. And your presence there gives them a way to come here. It’s like a cultural exchange programme, do you see?’

  Angela might not, but Nessa remembers hearing how Liz Sweeney’s brother returned from his Call only to find his school destroyed by the Sídhe.

  ‘But the Sídhe can’t hide from the Grey Land for long. It summons them back and they shrink and shrink—’

  ‘Unless,’ Nessa says, fascinated, ‘they can get inside one of us.’

  ‘Exactly!’ The old woman’s eyes glitter. She loves this stuff. It’s all she loves. ‘When they are small enough – no larger than a speck of dust – they crawl up to your face, hoping you’ll breathe them in. A little parasite that grows and grows inside you until—’

  Angela shrieks, ‘Stop! Stop! I can’t go back there! You can’t make me go back!’

  ‘Well,’ says the professor, ‘I could hold you in the ambassador’s iron room. There’s no point, though. You’ve been Called and what made you special is gone. But you …’ she turns to Nessa. ‘Oh, you! You’re the one they really want. They only took her so they could get at you.’

  ‘They were trying to kill me.’ By now Nessa has pulled herself upright.

  ‘No they weren’t. The guard who speaks their primitive language heard one of them say that none of them would hurt you. They actually put themselves between you and the bullets.’

  ‘He was lying,’ says Nessa. ‘I mean, one of the Sídhe did say that, but then he attacked me!’

  ‘Really? When we all know that lying is the one thing the Sídhe don’t do?’ Then the professor is staring at Angela, as if something is terribly wrong. It’s just a ruse, because when Nessa follows the old woman’s gaze, she finds herself back on the floor with no idea of how she got there.

  ‘You electrocuted her,’ says Angela.

  ‘Only a little. You want to go back to the Grey Land?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You’re barely taller than I am now, girl. But I have a place I can put you if you help me get her into a chair. I’m not as strong as I used to be. I’ll make sure she stays asleep until we get her comfortable.’

  A damp cloth stinking of alcohol is placed over Nessa’s face. She tries to rise, to fight against it – she’s seen the movies, after all – but her arms won’t move and all she sees is the red-haired prince and the white knife sweeping down towards her face. It’s true what the professor said: they don’t lie. They never lie. So why did he attack her?

  Sweat rolls down Nessa’s face. ‘Mam?’ she asks. It’s the flu, and soon there’ll be a cool cloth and honeyed apple tea for her throat.

  But it’ll take more than that – this is the worst fever Nessa’s ever had. That anybody has ever had! Even her bones are boiling over with it. She imagines steam leaking from under her eyelids and her tongue is a slab of hot leather in her mouth.

  ‘Mam?’ she asks again. ‘I don’t want the tea. Cold water, Mam, please.’

  But when she opens her eyes it’s only the professor’s wrinkled face looking back at her, full of contempt.

  ‘Do I look like I can speak Irish, girl? German, I told you. English. Latin. Something with a bit of science in it. Oh, and you’re getting hot by the way. So much for the heat going to the Grey Land!’ She grins. ‘You tried to waste my time, but I’ll find everything out. I can’t wait for what comes next.’

  Nessa is lying on a table with her arms stretched out to either side. A Bunsen burner fires away at full blast into the back of each hand. She has no idea how long she’s been trapped here, but her body tells her she’s reached her limits and that any second now she must surely erupt like a volcano. Already her prison uniform has begun to steam. Who knows where it will go from there?

  I’ll spit out the fire, she thinks. I’ll torch that Crom-twisted witch.

  And then what? Will the Bunsen burners keep going? Will the whole prison burn down around her as happened back in school?

  Oh, Lugh, the heat! Is her blood boiling? Can it boil? Did the Sídhe fix that too?

  The professor has turned her back for a few moments, adjusting some kind of machinery. Nessa looks around the cluttered shelves for a way out of this and her eyes pass over a little girl weeping on a chair in the corner.

  ‘Angela?’ She’s half the size she was. She’s disappearing into the prison blanket she’s been using to cover herself.

  ‘You said you’d put me in an iron room,’ Angela says.

  ‘Oh, I will,’ replies the professor. She waves what looks like a metal thermos cup, not much larger than her hand. ‘I have it here. I’m just waiting until you can fit. I’ll need to find a way to get you oxygen too … Oh! And some fibre optics, so I can observe you eating and defecating and so on. Might get some use out of you after all.’

  Then, somewhere, a phone rings and the professor curses. She flicks a switch. ‘What is it, Barry?’

  His voice comes out on a speaker. ‘Warden Barry. I do you the courtesy of—’

  ‘Show your hurt feelings to the vet, Barry. I’m busy.’

  ‘That’s too bad, Professor,’ the warden is speaking through his teeth. ‘Because I’ve had a call from the justice minister herself. And … well, it’s a terrible thing, but the … the Doherty girl has to go.’

  ‘Are you a fool? She’s mine! Another week and I’ll know how she works. I need to know.’

  ‘We’ve no choice in the matter. The enemy could come for her again at any time. You saw that. The ministry says she’s too dangerous now.’

  ‘I am the dangerous one, you fool. It’s why my lab is in a prison, after all. But the Nation needs me. And I need the girl. The Sídhe only got in here by using a Call, so—’

  ‘She’s important to them; they’ll find a way!’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Barry. You’re not getting her until I’ve finished. Now, leave me to my work.’

  ‘I thought you’d say that,’ says the warden, sounding strained. ‘I don’t want you to get hurt, but we’re taking her. We’ll do our duty and you can’t stop us.’

  ‘Who’s this “we”, you eejit? Your pathetic guards won’t dare lay a finger on me. I know all their faces.’

  The double doors at the far end of the laboratory explode open – literally. A dozen soldiers pour inside wearing ancien
t gas masks and real army uniforms. There’s not a prison guard among them.

  ‘She’s mine,’ the professor mutters. ‘She’s mine.’ Her stick fingers fly over buttons. Glass balls drop from the ceiling, and where they strike, liquid sprays and soldiers scream, tearing at their clothing.

  The survivors scatter. Then a book explodes by the old woman’s head. ‘That’s it!’ she screeches. ‘Ye’ve pushed me to this! Ye’ve pushed me too far!’

  Balls of acid continue to fall from the ceiling; holes open in the floor; electricity arcs between seemingly unrelated objects when men and women try to pass through. Nessa would feel sorry for the attackers, except she knows they’re here to see her dead.

  And she has her own problems: a body that feels like it consists of nothing but searing flame. She’s got to get out of here.

  Nessa concentrates. Her flesh steams, though her skin feels as dry now as old cork. Bullets ricochet around the room, pinging, clattering and smashing everything they touch.

  But she squeezes her eyes shut. She directs the heat towards her wrists until, with a whoosh, the dressing on her injured hand bursts into flame.

  The handcuffs turn red, then searing white. She jerks herself free.

  But her triumph lasts barely a second. Something has cut her thumb. She whips her hand away from the source of it, but it’s only a tiny thing really: a knife no larger than her little finger. It’s the weapon the red-haired prince brought from the Grey Land, and it must have been shrinking ever since.

  ‘Nessa!’ Angela cries ‘They’re shooting at you!’

  They’re shooting at everything really. Glass explodes. Distorted skulls topple from their shelves. So Nessa ducks down beside Angela.

  I don’t want to die yet, she thinks. I don’t want to die at all.

  But better a bullet than to be Angela. The girl has shrunk to the size of a toddler. Those tear-reddened eyes know they’ll see the Grey Land again in a few more hours and that the Sídhe will be queuing up to welcome her.

  ‘No!’ cries the professor. ‘Don’t shoot at that! Please! It’s the last one on the whole rotten island! Stop it!’

  And then, a few moments later, her voice rises to a screech. ‘All right! Ye can have her. But it’s a waste, ye hear me? Such a waste.’

  A man shouts, his voice muffled but clear enough. ‘Send her out then. The Doherty one.’

  ‘Oh, for another hour,’ mutters the professor.

  Nessa ignores her. ‘I’m coming,’ she calls. And then, to Angela, ‘Stay well back – I may have to burn my way free.’ She crawls out from under the bench, standing with great difficulty on legs barely worthy of the name.

  Groaning bodies lie scattered about the laboratory, but four men and a woman remain standing no more than three metres from Nessa, rifles pointed right at her face.

  The fire still seethes in her flesh and, oh, how it longs to be free! ‘Please,’ she says, ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

  ‘Likewise.’ The man’s voice is surprisingly gentle behind the gas mask. ‘I don’t care if the enemy turned you traitor, girl. What I saw in the Grey Land … Well, nobody could be blamed for giving in to that. But I’ve a young daughter of my own now. Just learning to talk. I’ll do what I have to. The Nation must survive.’

  ‘Please,’ Nessa says again. She curls a fist and allows it to grow hot.

  ‘I’m sure you’re strong,’ says the woman. ‘I’m sure you’re a good fighter—’

  ‘It’s not that,’ hisses the professor, watching from safety. Nessa can hear the grin in her voice, the anticipation of what is to come. ‘Our girl has a special skill, don’t you, Doherty? You think I haven’t figured it out by now? I saw your clothes smoking. I can see the remains of the handcuffs.’ She hobbles out from behind her desk, her deadly metal cane ringing with each step.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ the man says.

  Heat, Nessa thinks. Enough heat to melt the flesh from the soldiers’ bones. To cook the very brains in their skulls!

  ‘Burn them,’ the professor says. ‘Burn them to smithereens and I’ll take you out of here with me. I swear it.’

  Out! Oh, to be free again! Oh, to live! To hope! She raises her hand. Can’t they see it? Can’t the soldiers see it glowing?

  ‘What use are these fools anyway?’ continues the professor. She’s right at Nessa’s shoulder. ‘To the likes of us? Just let me study you and I’ll get you away. Burn them, I say! Burn them!’

  And Nessa can’t. She can’t do it. Not to the man with the toddler at home. Not to the lone female warrior who fought her way into a man’s world. Not to any of them.

  ‘Ex-excuse me,’ she says to the nearest soldier.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘My orders—’

  Nessa whips around and punches the professor hard in the face. The old woman crashes to the ground, her cane spinning away.

  Nessa feels dizzy. Her knuckles sting from the impact, but somewhere inside her brain Megan’s ghost is jubilant: Brilliant, Ness! That wrinkly cow won’t be picking her nose again for a while!

  The soldiers stand frozen, as though shocked by what she has done to somebody so frail, or perhaps guilty for what they themselves are about to do to a teenager.

  There’s still a chance, Megan whispers. There’s enough heat to turn them to ash.

  Instead, with a sob, Nessa allows most of the heat to hiss away into the air, her own sweat rising from her as steam. She sags, dropping back against the desk, as the soldiers quietly, kindly, bear her up and take her out past their own wounded and into the corridor beyond.

  The Boat

  They don’t send people out on windy days, or so one of the guards tells her. ‘And lucky for you, miss!’ he adds, showing her a mouth only half filled with sagging teeth. ‘It’s like a pond out there right now. You’ll be back with your fairy friends before you know it.’

  Nessa and her two guards stand on a quay in a place called Loughshinny. All around them lie the rotting hulks of fishing boats, for who would brave the oceans now?

  ‘Sometimes we strip the prisoners,’ the guard says conversationally. ‘If their clothing’s any good. Nation needs it more than you do, right? You can keep yours though. It’s half burnt to bits!’

  Nessa pays him no heed. She’s too busy fighting to conceal the shivering in her body, the chattering of her teeth. They’ll think it’s fear rather than the cold, and that will bring them joy. Well, they won’t have it! Not from her! Nor, by Crom, will they see her cry.

  She looks up and out to sea, as though merely interested.

  Nine waves from shore is where it begins. Or at least that’s what people say, referring to that ancient line in The Book of Conquests … It’s more like a kilometre though. That’s where the horizon fades away, melting into a fog that hasn’t shifted in twenty-five years.

  ‘The boat will go in,’ the man says. ‘And you … you will simply be gone.’

  He and a guard she thinks of as ‘tobacco breath’ lead her down seaweed-slimed steps and sit her in the boat. She could struggle, she thinks. She’s far stronger than they expect her to be, and she could fling one or both of them into the water and maybe make it back to the top of the pier to where the other men are only half paying attention.

  But Nessa doesn’t know how to drive the rusty prison van they’ve left in the empty car park. And besides, there is a small hope that she shares with all of the other prisoners who were ever tied into the little rowboat before her: maybe, she thinks, just maybe she’s not going to the Grey Land at all.

  Certainly she will be gone from here and the boat will come back empty. But what if she wakes up on a beach in Wales? There has to be a chance, doesn’t there? Or the Isle of Man? Like most young people’s these days, her geography is sketchy, but she knows those places weren’t too far away from Ireland once upon a time.

  Tobacco breath sees that dreamy look on her face and shakes his head.

  ‘I’d give that thought up, if I were you, miss. Wale
s wasn’t in swimming distance in the old days. If the Sídhe don’t get you, it’ll be the crabs. Anyway, it’s in the Testimonies, isn’t it? At least twice people have been recognized in the Grey Land, though they’d been made into monsters or animals.’

  Nessa shrugs. She’s read the Testimonies too. ‘Thank you,’ she says to the man.

  ‘Sarcastic, eh? I like your spirit.’

  But Nessa isn’t being sarcastic at all. They sit her on the little wooden thwart in the centre of the boat. They tie her hands with thick rope, but not so tightly it causes her splinted fingers to ache. She’s thanked the old man because he has taken away that stupid false hope of reaching Wales. And that frees her up for what she knows she must do. So she sits calmly until she has been fully secured.

  ‘You’ve been told about the last requests?’ This is from the nastier of the two guards, the half-toothless one. He has a pen and paper ready. ‘I’m not going to stay more than ten minutes. Too bloody cold. So give me the address and keep the message short.’

  Now at last Nessa feels something she cannot hide, and a lump almost too large to permit speech pushes up into her throat.

  ‘I … I have parents and a boyfriend.’

  ‘Had,’ the man says with a grin.

  ‘I don’t want them to know what’s happened to me.’

  ‘That’s not a message!’

  ‘That’s a request, mister. My final request. Nobody is to know.’

  He looks unhappy, but nods. He snaps the notebook shut.

  Two other old men appear now in a dinghy with an outboard motor. Neither of them looks at her as they tow her rowboat away from the pier and out towards the mist. She can cry now in perfect safety. She will never see her parents again. She will never marry Anto or have the little farm with chickens and dogs and all sorts.

  But the Sídhe aren’t going to get her either, of that she’s certain.

  The two boats pass out of the small harbour and into the open sea. She can feel the difference. For all that the day is calm, the swell raises and lowers her gently in the palm of its giant watery hand. ‘You’ll be safe with me,’ it seems to say.