Neither Dead Nor Alive Read online

  “It grew up to be the strongest and fiercest bull in the land and many neighbouring chiefs offered Finn great wealth in bronze and gold and slaves if he would give it to them. But Finn always said it was his son’s lucky bull and refused to part with it.

  At last Fergus Snake-eye gave Finn a cauldron of pure gold. Finn claimed it was a gift, but Fergus insisted that it was meant to be in exchange for the bull.

  “A few weeks later, at midsummer, Aidan celebrated his twelfth birthday. The Morrigan appeared, first as a raven, then as an adder to remind Finn of the promise he had made all those years before – but he refused to sacrifice the bull to her. Then Fergus stole it along with the cauldron and the sacred duty of sacrifice fell upon him.”

  “Where did Fergus hide the bull and the cauldron?” I ask.

  “It doesn’t say. At least I can’t find it, but I haven’t read the whole book yet.”

  “So it’s just a story,” I say. “The Morri-whatsit’s like Athene in the Trojan War. She got things sacrificed to her.”

  It’s my turn to show off now. In primary seven we did a project on the Trojan War.

  Fiona just twirls her ponytail.

  I feed her the question again.

  “This Morr-woman’s just like the Greek gods, then?”

  She doesn’t answer me. Instead she points to the dead dinosaur.

  “That hill’s got a name,” she announces. “Dad showed me on an old map. It’s called, “Cnoc an Oir.”

  “Knock on what?”

  “It’s Gaelic,” she says. “It means Hill of Gold.”

  Chapter 3

  THE LAND OF THE OLD

  Mark’s gone to Oban with his folks for the day, so I think I’ll go into Benderloch. Dad’s not sent my bike on yet, so I’ll have to walk.

  I decide to take a short cut across the fields. There’s clumps of bracken and yellow broom all over the place, and lots of rocks and trees and sourish blaeberries. I pick a few as I go along. There’s sheep too – dirty white with black faces.

  After a while I think there’s more trees than there should be and I’m just beginning to wonder if I’m off course when I see these cows. They’re too small, about the size of a Shetland pony. They’ve got these long twisty horns, like Highland cattle, but they’re black. In these fields there should be sheep.

  I’m not bothered. But the woods are getting thicker and tangled until I’m sure this isn’t the way I’ve come before. Besides, there ought to be some farm buildings on the right – it’s called Achnasomething – but I can’t see them.

  By now I’m sure I’m off the track. There’s a big rock in the middle of the woods here and I climb up to the top to get a view.

  It’s freaky. I should be able to see the caravan site from here, but it’s all trees and bushes. What’s really weird is I’m not lost at all. I’m in the right place. Dead ahead’s a slab of cliff on the hill beyond Benderloch, so I know I’m heading the right way. The Black Castle should be around here somewhere, but I can’t see it for the trees.

  Then I wonder – am I dreaming? Things don’t go right for you in dreams – you get lost and can’t find places, and that’s what’s happening just now. I start to climb down the boulder. Then my foot slips. I bang my shin against the rock and fall off. I land on my hip on a sharp stone and it’s sore.

  The pain feels real enough.

  This gives me an idea how to check if I am in a dream. If I charge straight into the woods I’ll get so banged up with branches and scratched with brambles that I’ll waken up. I once dreamed I was falling off a cliff. Then I wakened. I’d fallen out of bed. I’m really chuffed with this idea; so I charge straight into the densest thickets and claw my way through branches thick with thorns. The backs of my hands get scratched by brambles and my jeans get torn.

  But I don’t waken up.

  Instead I break through into a kind of clearing. Dead ahead of me is the cliff on the Benderloch hill; so this is where the Black Castle should be, only it’s not there. Instead the clearing’s got a kind of hedge all round it – not a growing hedge, but thorny stuff all pulled together on top of a bank. There’s a gap in the hedge, like a gate, and I’m looking straight through it.

  Inside the hedge I see – at first I’m not sure what they are. I screw up my eyes and shade them from the sun with my hand, but that doesn’t make it any clearer.

  I decide they must be houses. They’re round, made of big stones that fit into each other like a dry stone dyke. They’ve got pointed roofs covered with heather like a thatch.

  There’s about a dozen of these huts arranged in a circle just inside the thorny hedge. Some have got smoke coming out of the top, like they’re on fire. Right in the middle there’s a bigger hut that’s long and squarish. There’s kids and hens and dogs playing around.

  I decide I don’t want them to see me. So I back into some dense bracken. I’ve got this idea that something’s going to happen, so I squat down. I’m going to wait and see.

  A group of men come out of the big hut. They’re weird. They’ve all got their trousers tucked into their boots and they’ve got big droopy moustaches. They haven’t got beards, but they’ve got really long hair and it’s tied up in a kind of knot at the back, like a ponytail.

  Suddenly I’m thinking about Fiona. She’d freak out if she saw this. The geek would probably rush off and look it up in her daddy’s library. “There’s a book as old as a dinosaur…”

  I’m shattered out of thinking about her because there’s this big riot and they’re all shouting and freaking in some foreign language. The noise they’re making is weird, but what’s weirder is – I can understand what they’re saying.

  “Fergus!” they’re shouting. “Space for Fergus. Make way for the king.”

  ****

  Now I notice for the first time there’s an animal tethered to a post in front of the big hut. At first I think it must be a sheep. Then I see its horns. It’s a goat.

  I’m riveted by this, now.

  The other guys are still shouting, “Fergus. Fergus. Step forth Fergus. Satisfy the Great One. Save us from evil.”

  This humungous great hairy bloke comes out of the biggest hut. I think he must be special, cos he’s wearing a cloak over his shirt and he’s got a yellow collar like twisted wire round his neck. Then he turns and looks straight at me through the gap in the hedge. For a second I think maybe he’s seen me and I should run. But I can’t move.

  At least, one of his eyes is looking at me. The other’s staring somewhere else; the Appin hills, maybe. But his good eye makes up for it. It’s glaring like a light bulb.

  Fergus hasn’t seen me. At least – if he has – he doesn’t let on.

  He unties the goat’s tether from the post and takes the animal on to a big flat stone I hadn’t noticed before. He pulls a big cup, not a teacup – more like the Scottish Cup – from some place in his cloak and sets it on the flat stone.

  ****

  Then suddenly he starts to chant, “The Morrigan. The Morrigan,” softly at first. Then louder and louder.

  The others take up the shout, “The Morrigan. The Morrigan.”

  What happens next is too quick to see. Fergus slides his hand under his shirt, whips out a knife that shines like fire and cuts the goat’s throat. Blood belches and Fergus catches it in the big cup. The goat falls on its knees and its head almost topples off.

  Fergus is still screaming, “The Morrigan.”

  The goat’s blood is spurting out all over his face, soaking his moustache.

  I’m gonna be sick. I retch a couple of times. I just want to get away. I turn and run, right through leaves and branches. I must be making a heck of a noise, but I keep going.

  Then I’m down; tripped on a root. I shut my eyes and lie there. But they don’t come after me.

  After I don’t know how long I open my eyes. It’s all quiet, so I pick myself up and thread my way through the bushes. I remember now that I’m lost and I don’t know whether I’ll be able to
get back home, especially as it’s starting to get dark.

  My head’s down and I’m sort of staggering on. Then I bump into something. It’s a wire fence. On the other side of it’s a road – the road I was on. Then I see three sheep, white with black faces.

  Which way home, then? I glance at the Appin hills and the Benderloch cliff – grey in the dusk – climb the fence and turn right up the road.

  Chapter 4

  IT’S GOT TO BE YOU

  I’m picking a scab. There’s a tear in my jeans. That’s how I know I was there. I didn’t think Mark ‘n’ Fiona’d believe me, but I told them all the same. Mark is inspecting the tear like an expert.

  “Barbed wire fence,” he announces.

  I shrug. I’m looking at the backs of my hands – all scratched.

  Mark nods at the dead dinosaur. “Big bramble patch over there. Good try, Duracell.”

  He laughs and I see he has changed the colour of his chewing gum.

  Fiona isn’t laughing. She’s got the old book in her hands. She tells us we have to pay attention.

  She begins to read. Mark puts on his Walkman and pretends not to listen.

  “Finn the Red came over from Appin with his young son Aidan to recover the bull and the cauldron. But Fergus had bribed Gawawl Grimtooth, king of the Firbogs, to hide them in an underground tomb. His reward was to be the possession of the cauldron for himself.”

  “What’s a Firbog?” I interrupt.

  “They’re sort of like gnomes. They live under the earth.”

  “I know.” Mark takes his headphones off. “They’re really called gommies. We’ve got one in the garden. It’s red. But it’s got a crack in it.”

  Fiona twirls her ponytail impatiently.

  I say, “Belt up. I don’t know about all this old stuff, but there’s something scary going on and Fiona thinks the book can help us to find out about it.”

  She goes on, “Finn found the treasure, but Gawawl killed him and Aidan narrowly escaped with his life. Fergus Snake-eye knew that his life would never be safe as long as the boy was alive and, just three days later, he hunted him down with a pack of Elkhounds.”

  “What’s Elkhounds?” asks Mark, though he’s got the headphones back on.

  “An elk was a huge deer, bigger than a horse,” she explains. “The dogs were bred to kill them. They could tear wolves apart.”

  “Bet they didn’t get him,” says Mark.

  “They did. They tore him to pieces, just outside the tomb, while Fergus Snake-eye looked on.”

  She turns back to the book: “However, Fergus also refused to sacrifice the white bull to The Morrigan. What was much worse, he tried to trick her – her, a goddess. He offered her a white billy goat in the hope that, because she’s old and blind in one eye, she would not notice the deception.

  “But The Morrigan has the eyes of a raven when she wishes to see and she was not deceived. She took the form of a great white adder and bit him to the bone so that he died in agony.

  “So all the mortals perished – Finn and Fergus and young Aidan. But the vengeance of The Morrigan was not satisfied. She called up her raven and her adder as witnesses and she decreed that every year at midsummer all three would rise from the dead and re-enact their dooms afresh, each dying again – Finn at the hands of Gawawl, Aidan torn by the dogs and Fergus by the tooth of the snake – till the end of time.”

  “For ever and ever?” I whisper.

  “Perhaps not.” She turns the page. “It says here that Manannan, the god of the sea and the mist, persuaded The Morrigan that the punishment was too terrible – to be dead, yet never to be allowed to rest. So she relented and said that if one day someone of the clan of Finn would come and make the proper sacrifice, she would release Finn, Fergus and Aidan from the curse and they could all die at last and be at peace.”

  It’s a good story. Mark has even put the Walkman away.

  “Don’t you see?” she asks me. “Fergus Snake-eye was the man you saw in the village and he sacrificed a white goat to The Morrigan.”

  Mark breaks open a new pack of spearmint. “Believe that and you’ll believe anything.”

  I don’t know what to think. I ask, “Then what happened to me yesterday?”

  She closes the book. “I don’t know. I think you must have somehow walked into the past, to the time of the Appin Raid. I don’t know how or why… but you could hear the bellowing from inside that tomb. That must have been the ghost of the white bull. And now you’ve been able to walk right back into the past. You’ve seen Fergus Snake-eye in the flesh! You know what?”

  “What?”

  “You must be the one who will free them all from The Morrigan’s curse.”

  “Dream on,” I laugh. Mostly it’s a funny ha-ha laugh, but I’m scared.

  “You will have to go back into the past again, and find the bull and sacrifice it… ”

  I go ballistic. “That’s crazy. I don’t know how I got there – or how I got out again. And I’m not into sacrificing bulls. I am DEFINITELY not going back.”

  “... before it’s too late,” Fiona adds quietly. “Before poor Aidan has to die again.”

  Mark has stopped chewing.

  “A man’s gotta do… ” he chimes in.

  I turn on him. “Piss off!”

  He gets up and walks away. “See you later, Superman.”

  I’m shaking.

  Then I have this brill idea. “This frigging hero’s meant to be a… a who?”

  “Someone of the clan of Finn,” she prompts.

  “That lets me out,” I shout. “I’m a Paisley Buddy.”

  It’s crazy how proud I suddenly am to be a Buddy.

  “If you’re proud to be a Buddy clap your hands,” I chant.

  She cuts me short. “Your mum was born in Appin. She knew my dad when they were kids. It’s got to be you.”

  “No way.”

  “What was your mum’s maiden name?”

  I know, but I’m not going to tell her!

  Chapter 5

  GAWAWL GRIMTOOTH

  Mum’s gone to Paisley today. Think she might be going to see my dad. She couldn’t get a babysitter, so I’ve got the day to myself.

  I’m to “be careful.” What else can you do in this joint? Mark’s away, too, and I don’t fancy another lecture from that geek Fiona.

  So what to do? It’ll be boring, anyway.

  Could go up to Benderloch. Play some arcade games in the cafe. Maybe meet some kids. Bound to be some around, now school’s finished.

  This time, though, I’ll stick to the road – just in case.

  So here I am; all right so far – plod, plod. I’m glancing around from side to side just to check. As I go along I stop and pick a few rasps or blaeberries. It’s too early for the brambles.

  At least I’m past Achnawhatsit, the place that disappeared last time.

  A bit further on I hear this rustling noise in the heather, so I stop and have a look. A big dog is loping away across the moor. It’s like an Alsatian except it’s grey all over. I watch it for a bit until it disappears among some rocks.

  Then I turn round.

  I don’t believe this.

  I kick my left shin with my right foot. “Get real, Steve,” I gasp. Achnawhatsit’s not there. It’s just bushes and trees. I hear a long howl from among the boulders and I realize that what I saw was a wolf.

  My stomach turns over inside me.

  Right! I have to get BACK – to today. Last time this happened I got back when I found the road again. This time, though, there’s a problem. The road’s disappeared. There’s only a muddy track where it should be.

  There’s another problem, too. Something’s coming up the track towards me, going towards our house.

  I want to back into the bushes out of sight, but – trust my luck – just here there’s no bushes, only low tufts of heather.

  So I just stand here as if I’m brave or something.

  Two horsemen are on the track. The firs
t one’s on this small black horse, more like a pony really, with a red bridle. He’s a big guy, a bit like Fergus, but with OK eyes. He’s got red hair, like flames, and a ponytail and a droopy red moustache. And he’s wearing a twisty yellow collar, like Fergus.

  The second rider’s a kid about my age and he`s got sandy hair, just like me. It’s longer, of course, and it’s done up in a ponytail too.

  The big horseman stops. He looks down at me. His horse gets its head down and starts eating grass at the side of the track.

  He’s speaking in that funny language – and I’m understanding him.

  “Are you of our clan?”

  I shake my head.

  He kind of shudders and walks the horse on slowly as if he doesn’t really want to go any further.

  The other horse with the kid on top comes up to me.

  “What’s your name?” the kid asks.

  I feel my chest tighten and I can’t get my breath, cos it’s as if I’m looking at my own face, except for the ponytail at the back.

  “Steve,” I gasp.

  “Steve,” he repeats. He looks disappointed. “That’s not a king’s name. I am Aidan, son of Finn, son of Diarmid. Our clan is royal. There,” he points to the big guy, “is my father, Finn, the king.”

  He moves his horse on.

  I should go back and see if I can hit the proper road somewhere, but I can’t. I have to go forward and follow the boy with my face.

  The horses are getting ahead of me now. I break into a run. Then I stop. Maybe I’m not meant to catch up. But Aidan turns his horse and comes back.

  “Do you want to ride?”

  He gives me a hand to pull up on. Now I’m sitting behind him. I’ve never been on a horse before. It’s really high up.

  “We’re going to get the bull,” says the boy with my face. “My bull, born on the same day as I was. We’ve tried before, but I’ve never seen you here till today. Perhaps you can help us.”