The gatekeepers daughter, p.4
The Gatekeeper's Daughter, page 4
My throat felt as dry as soot when I croaked the hope circling my brain. “Is it gone? What happened?”
Áine swivelled her feet to one side and the others circled round a little more. Drust nearly sat with us.
“We were attacked,” she said. “One of our protocols when securing these sites is to reinforce whatever protection there is at the time. I’m sorry but this time it was our fault. Your father seemed to have his own ways of doing things, and that dark creature must have sensed when there was a break in his old protections.”
“Which is another reason why we should report in again,” Urien mumbled distantly. The others exchanged looks before Drust turned and, nodding from Urien to the hallway, left me with Áine and Freda.
“I feel somewhat responsible, Miss. I should apologise.” The other woman’s accent was more rhythmic, and her features darker than everyone else. The seriousness in her apology preserved what she’d seen in her role as defence.
I could have just died. That was the situation. That feeling of loss wouldn’t have even been a feeling if that had happened. It was just as ethereal to me as the belief that my father was related to all this. The shadows held more substance to me. Was continuing down this road the same as wishing my life away? I needed to think about this more before inevitability took hold like gravity.
Pivoting to feel less like the victim, I sat up slowly, blood rushing from my head.
“Are you feeling okay?” Áine half offered her arms as makeshift support, but I nodded.
“I’m fine.” I tried what I hoped to be a supportive forehead crinkle when I looked back to Freda. “It’s fine. I get the feeling things could have been worse if all of you weren’t here anyway.”
I glanced out the window and over the garden. Eoghan stood a short distance away between Drust and Urien, both hands resting on his walking stick. It was too far to make out the shape of their words, though I tried to read their moving lips, the occasional gestures implied it was about the attack.
“Eoghan worked for your community too, didn’t he?”
Áine nodded. “He was a bit of a legend around the time we were getting into our work. None of us worked with him though.”
Drust and Eoghan continued talking when Urien strayed away to make a call. By the time they came back in, Eoghan had left after sending a concerned look through the window. In the hour it took for a coffee to nurse me, Freda stationed herself back outside and Urien returned to brief Áine. When she came back in, she was alone and sat beside me on the sofa.
“So what do your higher-ups say about all this?”
She looked at me earnestly. “This mixture of events has led them to think revealing our nature should be the way forward.” My heart began to quicken in anticipation, I stayed silent for fear of changing her mind. “You could start to understand all this in your own time anyway but, Morgan, I want you to be cautious when you make this decision.”
I let my brain stew with this information, even though I knew I wouldn’t come to any other decision, and nodded.
“Okay, well, we believe you are more your father’s brethren than your mother’s. We are the descendants of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the people of Danu, and work for the Seelie Council.”
I recognised one of those words, and cast around in my mind for the others, processing the rest, “Seelie, like fey? What are you asking me to believe?”
“It is said that the Tuatha Dé Danann possessed certain skills.” She inclined her head, perhaps deciding the best way to continue. “As a people, we are more attuned to the natural energies around us and, to a certain degree, can influence them too. We’re at war, Morgan, and this dark creature is seemingly being used against us. We had to evacuate our city... well, tried to, so many were left behind... but when our gatekeepers didn’t return, we couldn’t afford to send more.” She held my gaze meaningfully.
“Gatekeepers... like my father?”
“Yes. Gatekeepers inherit something rare, they are realm-walkers.”
“That’s enough, Áine.” Urien appeared in the hallway and, as if breaking a spell, I had to look between them, force myself to see them.
I didn’t know what to think. I had to get up, as if the cogs needed me to move. And for the first time since the attack, I left the house. I found myself walking the same route as before, the shop fronts’ wide brickwork becoming as familiar as the stonework beneath my feet. I didn’t even care that they were still at the house without me. I had been right. Life was more than it seemed, society as we knew it was a big ruse. Ironically, I would never feel sane again.
A figure walked towards me, a woman speaking on the phone. Cool air filled my lungs, moisture clung to the air and the breath shuddered in my throat. Mum had known— of course she had. Why else would we have moved? Did that make it worse that she hadn’t told me after my experiences? Had my father wanted us to stay away for both our sakes?
In the untold coordination of passing by, I looked at the woman again only to notice the grey tinge of her skin. Her eyes flickered to mine as we passed— there was black in her eyes where there should have been white. As if locked by a magnet, my body turned to establish what I had seen. She kept going, obviously not caring for my reaction, and continued her conversation. I checked around, looking for someone else to tell me what I had just seen, and stumbled to a pause.
Almost instinctively, after not finding anyone immediately close by, my gaze darted to the areas of shadow. But they stayed where they were. I backed towards a bench overlooking a small park and sat. Was it the place, being so close to this gateway? Wouldn’t people have heard about a place like this?
Past the entrance, the park path wound past a gentle hill and over a little bridge built for a man-made troll of chalk and fairy moss. Bunches of sunlit trumpets lined up along the hedges backing onto gardens from another street. A child squealed at the other end of the park and was chased over the patches of vibrant grass that had woken up to the spring music. That was the normality my parents had decided we wouldn’t have. I’d come back to know if I’d have made the same decision. Would I be a different person if we’d stayed?
But now I was part of all this regardless of my parents’ arrangement. It hadn’t mattered. Would my choice now even have any significance? Despite the afternoon sun breaking through the remaining winter chill, the situation closed in around me, suffocating. My palms were clammy, and I hid my fingers in my sleeves to warm them.
I still wanted to explore and experience. I needed to know what the world offered before making this decision. And yet, I had chosen to come here first. I had deemed this important enough for me to put off other places. A small part of me was aware that by answering my curiosity, I had already sealed how I was going to live afterwards.
The child shouted again and darted around a group of teenagers, laughing. The mother went to follow, but one of the group stuck their bag out, and she tripped. I watched, social morality pushing me to speak out, but if anything went awry, I knew I had no way of actually helping. The culprit caught the mother’s arm to stop her from falling. Her face opened up in relief, even as the colour drained from her face. Her movements were apologetic and thankful whilst the skin around her eyes darkened. She wiped her brow, as if she’d suddenly grown feverish.
Another in the group looked my way, its nose and ears flat, predatory. I looked to the mother again who laughed and called to her child, taking them under her protection and displaying affection all at once. And then they walked away, the child babbling loud enough that I could still hear an occasional intonation. They gave me no reason to believe they were seeing what I was seeing. I looked straight back over to the group, as if it would answer what they had just done. They were laughing, one of them pointing at another. The one who had spotted me didn’t look back. My head pulsed after witnessing something. The group had pried fun from her health, but obviously cared as much for my reaction as the woman on the phone. The woman and child were still walking— they hadn’t taken her life, but she looked like she might need to rest with some lemon and honey for a few days.
After I couldn’t see the woman anymore, I turned. I didn’t want to know what had happened. Maybe she just had a low immune system. Maybe this didn’t have to involve me. I headed frantically towards Rosie. How far I might be able to get away from all this? I was happy to come back and see what was left after these people were done. I still had my key, I reminded myself as I focused on the pavement, and if they changed the locks to the house... so be it. I still hadn’t moved anything of mine so I began to think that I could probably drive off without them noticing. It would probably be a relief for them anyway.
The moment I could see Rosie’s end, my stomach clenched, as if I was only normal when my escape wasn’t in sight. I tried to speed up, but I didn’t want to attract attention from the house. I didn’t move my head in any discernible way. I could get in my van. I could drive away. I could still exist outside of all this for the time being.
A familiar calm blanketed me as soon as I closed the van door. I released the deep breath and waited just another moment before pulling my seatbelt over me. I hadn’t planned where I was going to go. I’d done that before, driven to see where the road would go. If I stayed on this bit of land, I could always find my way back. I turned the engine on and the second I was about to drive off, the passenger door opened.
Drust leant in, his bomber jacket falling open. “It’s not my intention to stop you, don’t worry. It would probably make things simpler even but... Can I have a second?”
I eyed him, knowing whatever he wanted to say was to try and convince me of something, regardless of what he’d just said. But I found myself thinking that if it had been Áine, Freda, or Urien, I wouldn’t have been as curious about what they had to say. I gave a small nod, turning the engine off, before he sat on one knee and pulled the door closed after him.
“Since you connected with your father’s gift, I think it’ll be unlikely the world will be the same for you again.” He watched me from under a stray lock of hair, but I was unable to meet his eye. “But you’ve already found that out, haven’t you? What happened?”
It didn’t seem like something I knew how to talk about, a woman tripped— what was strange about that? I felt my focus shift through the windscreen, and I shrugged whilst I tried to think of the words. “I don’t even know. It’s me then? It’ll be the same wherever I go?”
He lowered his gaze and tilted his head. “Probably, we’ve only recently begun to explore how others recognise this energy. In your case, I found it strange that both that dark creature and your father’s hound were interested in you, so I think it likely that this was lying dormant in you until your family’s gate was threatened.”
I couldn’t go anywhere. I had sealed who I was by coming here in the first place. My heart grew just as dense as the shadows I wanted to escape and sunk. The disappointment and anger clung to me, tightening my jaw, even as my eyes closed briefly into the last escape I had.
“We’re going to work this out,” he continued. “This impacts more people than you realise and we all want the same thing. There are those who live apart from all this though, your neighbour Eoghan has for many years out of necessity. It would be irresponsible of me not to mention that the Unseelie will find you an easier target if you do leave though, if you don’t have a way to protect yourself.”
Memories of Mum’s last days were roused unbidden, provoked by what had happened in the park; the prominence of her once fine cheekbones and forehead displayed her strength in the face of her ongoing battle. Had she felt the touch of some darker force too? Had we been game as soon as we’d left my father? Should I have been able to protect her?
“I came here thinking I wanted to unravel these secrets,” I said quietly, resting my head on the seat behind me. “It doesn’t make sense why Mum kept this from me. I don’t know what I was expecting— definitely not this.”
He slowly shrugged, watching someone cross the road. “Would you rather not know, looking back? What I know about my family keeps me searching for answers. It’s part of me now.”
I followed the same person he did briefly, they carried shopping, the bold colours of branded boxes pressed up against the stretching plastic. “If I knew it was going to change me, I would’ve wanted a little more time. I think I still would have come here eventually.”
“Then what’s the difference?” He looked back to me. “Everything changes us, but we find ways to live with it anyway.”
There was a story there. Of course, I wasn’t so naive to think that everyone else’s lives were unmarked, but I was interested enough in this little group, in this calm, solid presence next to me, that I wanted to hear about his life.
“What did your family do?” I met his look, hoping to shake him as much as his last observation had jarred me with its honesty. It really didn’t matter when I’d come here, if I knew I would have come here in every situation.
He didn’t answer immediately. One moment I thought he might leave me and Rosie to work out what we were doing but then he said, “My whole life would have been different if I hadn’t been reclaimed, but the knowledge that it could have been a real possibility acts as my guide. I know that who I am now is decidedly stronger in that knowledge.”
Would I get to the point where I was stronger because no one had been there to teach me? Was I capable of holding a truth as closely as Drust did? It obviously brought him confidence. I found the word reclaimed curious but didn’t poke further. What society was I actually involving myself with? Who would oppose the shadows?
“Can you teach me how to be safe?”
“You’ll probably pick some things up. We’ll need to hear from the council before we do anything more with you anyway.”
C h a p t e r
S i x
“Morgan?” Áine’s voice came from the front door after hearing it open. Oona didn’t even flick an ear, knowing full well when we were in danger. She remained in her den, shaped by her circling, not far from where I was at the kitchen table. Though I’d decided to stay and had seen them every day since, the group weren’t staying at the house and usually left by the evening. When I was exploring the town, I often saw at least one of them around too.
They seemed particularly interested in the door I had assumed led to the garage, the same one the light had come from the day the shadow attacked. I hadn’t tried to open it yet but none of them had stopped me examining my father’s books in the meanwhile either. He hadn’t lacked possessions, and I found that the homely features in each room were far more than a lifetime’s collection of antique furniture. The furniture had been handcrafted and carefully looked after, delicately created porcelain hidden away behind glass, looking down upon me, faded photo frames on the sides and forgotten letters in piles on tables. Though the more frequented rooms had been reasonably well kept, the other spaces around the bedroom, kitchen, and office held boxes of even older clothes, books, and even weapons. Eoghan said that they’d been my grandfather’s— what else used to belong to other members of my family here?
“In the kitchen,” I said louder than usual. I made no attempt to move the photo albums and letters I had been studying on the table. Urien may have eyed them before, implying the importance of reporting whatever was found, but Áine had been quick to shush him. When she spoke about their way of governing and running their little group, I wondered if our systems seemed as fragmentary. Although everyone who associated with the court reported to the Seelie Council, smaller communities ran themselves where only the basics like food, shelter, defence, and Pacts were managed in the city, Falias. By the sounds of it, the council members who oversaw these main areas directed their recent evacuation. There was a noble family, who always had a member in the council, though Drust said they acted more like a figurehead now.
It was the council we had been waiting to hear from.
“They’ve arrived.” Before she noticed what was laid out in front of me, Áine appeared in the hallway. She walked over and stood at my shoulder to have a look.
“All of them?” I asked.
“Oh... no, my darling, most of them stay at camp for their own safety, but Belenus, Master of Accords, and Agrona, Master of Alliance, would like to meet you before settling their decision.” She tilted one of the letters her way, one of the ones I couldn’t read, written in that curving, embellished language. I recognised the letters now but still had no point of reference. In whispered tones, Áine had given me the essence of some of the records one afternoon; descriptions of places travelled and who had gone with him. Only Drust had walked in, looked at us with equal scrutiny, before striding right back out the way he’d come.
“Can Eoghan be there?” From what I’d gathered, he’d been outside the Seelie circle for some time, and I hoped he would tell me if they were hiding anything. I felt like he might act in my father’s best interests, but I didn’t know if my father’s interests lined up with my own.
Áine continued reading for a moment longer before looking back to me, a tilt in her expression, “We can ask... but when Mr Wilkins left, there was some controversy. Honestly, I was surprised he’d been living so close to the gate, but unfortunately that might work against him too.”
“Wouldn’t it only be fair to at least let him know what’s going on?”
She nodded. “He knows. Agrona said he’d contacted them as well. From what I heard, it was more out of concern for you. Urien said he wanted to know what they were going to do to protect you.” Then, tapping the letter still laid next to her outreached hand, she lowered her tone into mischief. “This is cute. Your father was writing love notes to your mother, this must be one of his drafts.”
She didn’t realise the impact her last comment had on me as she curiously lifted one bit of paper and then another. In a small gesture of friendly sharing, I suddenly knew my father was on my side, and his concern came through Eoghan, just like his love was recorded in his handwriting here. My father still cared for my mother, and he’d wanted to keep us safe. All at once, I felt his personality in the house around me and in his words before me. His presence echoed through his relationship with Eoghan.
