Time had stagnated in the silence. It was something she’d taken for granted in Caroline’s cottage – sea foam fizzling across the sand, the cackling of chatty gulls, and the slew of other mellifluous sounds whose score ran on a constant loop. Within these walls, Mina couldn’t imagine a song being played or a voice ever raising above an uneasy whisper. Even a light flourish of birdsong outside the window on a summer’s morning would have seemed out of place.
The cell’s build prioritised strength over beauty – tough scales in lieu of soft skin – and though it may have held the shape of a box bedroom, it lacked all the comfort of one. Cold tiles and coarse white walls deterred any warmth that may have otherwise made its home there, whilst the leaden light of a joyless day crept through a skinny window above Mina’s head. She was sat cross-legged on her bed, skull pressed back into the wall, staring at the door, straining to make sense of the fresh cracks that had quaked through her life. The yellow one was by her side, tottering happily on his beam despite being implicated as her accomplice. She fed her fingers through his cage, letting him pick at their tips to pass the time. One of them might as well enjoy a little distraction. That door wasn’t opening anytime soon.
Mina still had no clue where the station was that she’d been taken. After being abducted by the authorities she had lain across the back seat of their squad car, hands tucked between thighs, suffering that mystifying sensation of being both captured and rescued as every bump in the road jerked her body about in the darkness.
Bedsprings squeaked as she struggled up and onto her feet. The parrot watched on, excited as he was baffled by this sudden movement. Standing on the mattress, Mina had to lift on her toes to reach the window. Its ledge was carpeted in dust and the crisped shells of long-dead insects. The view wasn’t especially cheerful either.
There was a car park directly outside, grey and grittier than an abandoned building site. A low brick wall skirted its perimeter where three parked cars faced Mina’s cell – one of which belonged to the Guards. And behind them, where the land rolled out in green fields, a forest stole the horizon like a dark storm swelling from the ground up.
‘Why am I not surprised?’ She sighed under her breath.
Concrete and trees again – the recurring horror story that was her life. Somehow she’d felt safer in the coop, trusting Kilmartin’s diligence in its design to keep the monsters out. Besides, doors and their locks were useless unless she held the keys to them, and Mina had been stripped of that responsibility for the foreseeable future. It seemed as though she was less a part of this world now and more like its dirty little secret – an embarrassment that it no longer had any use for and so chose to hide away. No branch was seen to shiver in that bleakest of vistas; even their leaves were still as ceramic. Eyes squinched up as she scanned between the rows of trees, darkening as they led deeper into the thicket. The distance wasn’t so far that she couldn’t draw out a few details, but thankfully there was nothing out of the ordinary to dial her fraught nerves up another notch or two. For better or worse, it was about as entertaining as staring at a locked door.
‘Looks like we’re lost again,’ she said, glancing down at the yellow one.
The crunch of footsteps drew near the window. Somebody was coming. Detective Lynch strode across the car park with all the poise and posture of a high-powered lawyer in her open taupe trench coat. Headlights flashed as her car unlocked: a cutesy yellow Fiesta that couldn’t have been more incongruent with the bitch’s personality. Mina lowered her eyes to the ledge when Lynch sat into the driver’s seat. Being caught spying wouldn’t do much to alleviate the detective’s low opinion of her sanity. Luckily she was too engrossed in her mobile phone to have noticed, probably messaging the nearest asylum to book Mina a full suite with padded walls and a wardrobe full of straitjackets.
‘Must be nice to drive home after a short day’s work,’ she whispered, ‘you absolute wagon.’
Lynch was unrecognisable in the privacy of her own company. The sharpness to her face had softened since the interrogation room, and even in that drabbest of daylight, her pale cheeks were imbued with the faintest hue as though she were blushing. Those humourless lips pinched up on either side. Despite her best efforts, the smile refused to be tamed. She was giggling to herself, shaking her head in happiness as she reread whatever message she’d received. Perhaps Mina had been too quick to criticise. The role of detective was obviously a mask she’d worn. And now, discarded for the day, she looked nothing like the woman who’d stared her down across the table, accusing her of murder and of madness. There was love in her eyes and a hopefulness that Mina had forgotten still existed in the lives of others.
She lowered back onto the mattress and dragged the yellow one’s cage over to her side. He seemed to simper at all the attention he was receiving.
‘I’d let you out for a walk around,’ she said to him, ‘but as you can probably see for yourself, you’re not missing much out here.’
The only option within her power was to wait. She’d given the Guards Jennifer’s number. They’d declined Mina’s request to speak to her herself, so there was no knowing what they had told her. But it was safe to assume that it was far from flattering. After their last conversation, when Mina had been too drunk to string her words together and her sister too impatient to listen to her failed attempts, Jennifer had hung up and never called back again. In fairness to her, she’d questioned her mental well-being long before Detective Lynch ever poked her holes in it. The accusations probably wouldn’t come to Jennifer as any surprise. But Mina had still hoped she’d come regardless.
A key clicked in the door.
‘How are we getting on, Mina?’ the Guard said as he stepped inside, holding a foldable chair in one hand. ‘You’ve a visitor.’
He was a chunky little cherub of a man, with a sickly sheen around his lips as though he’d just scoffed a feed of fried chicken with his bare hands. Mina drew down her eyes to examine them; they looked relatively clean, but his nails were chewed down to ugly nubs. Middle age had softened him into a shapeless blob with a duo of chins that swamped his neck like a scarf of jelly.
‘Is it my sister?’ she asked, sitting forward.
The Guard shook his head. ‘No, it’s Doctor Flanagan. He’s the psychologist who’s been assigned to your case.’
‘My case.’ Mina let her head loll back as she expelled a sigh of unclouded frustration. ‘Because I’m fucking mad, right?’
‘You’ll have to ask him yourself,’ he said as he opened out the chair and set it down facing Mina’s bed. ‘He’s the professional.’
‘Can I not leave this cell for a while? I actually will go mad if I’m locked up here for much longer.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not my choice to make, Mina.’
‘And what if I have to use the bathroom?’ she asked, casting her eyes towards the toilet in the corner.
‘Would you like to go before he comes in? I’m sure we can give you a moment to yourself.’
‘No,’ she replied, pinching the bridge of her nose, ‘let’s just get it over with.’
The Guard retreated into the corridor and pointed back towards her, presumably for the benefit of Doctor Flanagan who needed some guidance in finding what was probably the only cell in the building.
‘There you are now, Doctor,’ he said, ushering him inside. ‘Let me know if you need anything.’
Flanagan scanned Mina with a quick, clinical eye from her socks to her hair before frowning with some suggestion of disbelief at the yellow one. ‘I’m sure we’ll be fine, thank you,’ he replied before the door was closed behind him.
The man’s posture was deplorable, and his thinness was exaggerated by a jacket too wide in the shoulder. He couldn’t have been much older than Mina but somehow looked even more downtrodden. His eyes seemed set at half-rest by default. Scruffy blond hair had been smeared without much result into a greasy parting, and the tiniest hairs shimmered on his cheeks and chin like biscuit crumbs. Of vitality, there was none. It was as though some elusive illness had been feasting away at him from the inside, and he’d been simply too tired or too bored by the sorry process to fight back.
‘Good afternoon, Mina,’ Flanagan said, so blandly as to seem disingenuous. ‘My name is Doctor—’
‘I’m not mad,’ she interjected, meeting his gaze as she tapped her fingers atop the yellow one’s cage. ‘Don’t let the parrot confuse you.’
Flanagan furrowed his brow as he nodded his head in understanding, all the while eyeing up the bird. ‘Innocent until proven guilty,’ he said in the same strain of lethargy, ‘and perfectly sane until proven otherwise. And can I just say, I don’t know what Detective…’ Here he hesitated, having obviously forgotten her name.
‘Lynch?’ she put in.
‘Lynch,’ he echoed, smiling lazily. ‘If ever a name was more fitting. As I was saying, I don’t know what Detective Lynch has told you about the various procedures we have to follow. But frankly, whatever you may or may not have done is of little concern to me, Mina. It’s my job to make sense of what’s going on up here.’ He tapped an index finger to his temple.
Flanagan looked again to the yellow one who’d yet to release its hold over his curiosity. ‘Why, may I ask, have you been detained with a parrot?’
‘He was causing a bit of a commotion in the reception so the Guards let me have him back,’ Mina replied, mildly committing to her supposed madness. ‘We’re a team. He likes to warn me if he thinks I shouldn’t trust someone.’
‘Is that so?’ the doctor said, finally sitting down. ‘There are people you and your parrot shouldn’t trust?’
‘If I told you why,’ she replied with a grin, ‘you’d probably call me mad.’
Flanagan chuckled to himself as he drew a pen and notebook from his coat pocket. ‘That’s the strangest thing about my job, Mina. I work for the state, you see, strictly as a criminal psychologist to handle cases such as your own. Whenever an accused is truly guilty, they always claim to be mad. And so when someone tells me that they’re not, well, it makes me wonder. Anyway, we shall see,’ he said, clicking his pen and offering a coy smile to both bird and patient.
Doctor Flanagan was not what she’d expected. Dishevelled as he looked, there was a quality beneath the skin that made her warm to him. And given her prickly get-together with Lynch, his apparent faith in her sanity came as a breath of fresh air in an otherwise poorly ventilated room.
‘Could you tell me where I am?’ she asked. ‘I kind of lost my bearings last night.’
The man seemed surprised by the question, though he must have – at the very least – been privy to how she came to be there. ‘Would you believe this station was originally an old English garrison?’ he replied, grumbling to clear whatever was stuck in his throat. ‘It’s smaller than most built at the time, only a single storey. And this is obviously a new addition,’ he added, looking up toward the cell’s high ceiling, ‘but the front reception is part of the original build, I think. Well, it must be, judging by the look of it.’
‘Okay.’ Mina chuckled. ‘That’s all well and good, but where am I?’
‘Oh,’ he said as though he’d just woken up, ‘the nearest town would be Gort, I suppose, but even that’s a fair few miles out.’
So my little cell here is about as rural as a cowshed, is that what you’re telling me?
He considered the comparison before agreeing with a subtle nod.
‘This first chat is just a formality, Mina,’ Flanagan said, moaning faintly as he crossed his legs. ‘It won’t take long. The Gardaí will keep us posted, I’m sure, if there are any developments in their investigation. But until then, it’s my job to come up with some impeccable verdict as to your mental well-being. I ask only that we practise absolute honesty with each other. Do you think you can do that for me?’
Mina stretched out so that her feet dangled over the floor. ‘Sure, whatever you want. I’ve not much else to be doing.’
‘Great,’ he said wryly, placing the open notebook on his thigh. ‘Let’s start at the beginning. It’s important that I understand your background before we even consider casting a light over your present predicament. The records tell me that you’ve no prior history of mental illness, is that correct?’
There had been days when Mina’s sadness had darkened her thoughts like a disease. But she’d never spoken to anyone about it, and so no doctor ever had the chance to diagnose her. Life was just shit sometimes and she reacted accordingly.
‘That’s correct,’ she replied which was, in essence, the truth.
‘That’s promising,’ Flanagan said, scratching out a few words in his notebook. ‘And your only brush with the law, if we can even call it that, was one public intoxication offence in your early twenties?’
‘Buckfast,’ Mina replied, smirking at the memory. ‘It’s a tonic wine, sickly sweet but it has some kick to it. I still can’t believe that uppity little Guard wrote me up for that. Though, to be fair, I was told that I wasn’t being very nice to him.’
‘And you have a sister, your next of kin. Jennifer’s her name, is that right?’
‘Twin sister,’ Mina corrected him.
The doctor looked up surprisedly, as if her answer bore some relevance. ‘Identical twins?’
‘In looks anyway, yeah.’
‘Well,’ he said, scribbling something down. ‘That is interesting. And how is your relationship with your sister?’ he asked, tapping his pen thoughtfully against his lower lip.
‘We’re very different people.’
Flanagan was seen to grin. ‘Ironic, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘We choose our friends in life, Mina, but we don’t choose our family. A clash of personalities is exceptionally common between siblings. Less so amongst twins. And tell me this, in what ways do you think Jennifer is different from you?’
‘I think she’s blonde now,’ Mina replied with a sarky little smile.
The doctor locked eyes with her. He didn’t seem at all taken back by the answer, as though her defensive stance had come as no surprise to him.
‘Would you say that you and Jennifer have a bad relationship?’
This was somehow more painful than her conversation with Lynch.
‘I’d say we have the absence of one,’ she replied. ‘She does her thing and I do mine. That’s the way it’s always been. Just because we have the same face, it doesn’t mean we have the same life.’
The doctor jotted down another word or two, one of which was underlined before he double-clicked his pen.
‘And was there any defining incident or encounter that caused this rift between the two of you?’ he asked. ‘Generally speaking, Mina, despite any notable differences in personality, it’s highly unusual for identical twins to not maintain any sort of contact, even if only for their parents’ sake.’
He had to take the conversation there, didn’t he?
‘My dad’s an alcoholic and my mum died from cancer,’ Mina said, coldly as she could. ‘So for their sake, I don’t think it’d make a whole lot of fucking difference.’
‘My condolences,’ Flanagan said, glancing up from his book. ‘When did she…?’
‘Let’s not go there,’ Mina replied.
‘Of course, my apologies. Back to the question, you’re sure there was no one event in particular that you would hold responsible for the breakdown of this relationship?’
She refused to talk about it.
Her mum was the only one who forgave her for what happened; if anything she’d layered even more love around Mina after the accident, recognising the guilt that made her feel like a monster dressed up in a Jennifer skinsuit. Those once harmless fistfights with her sister were traded for a far more hurtful silence. And her father was no different. He wasn’t lacking in love or welling over with hate. But there was an unspoken distrust etched into his eyes whenever he looked at her, which was somehow worse because he never once considered Jennifer the same way. She was the golden child, and Mina was the black sheep who came as a mandatory part of the package.
‘No,’ she lied, breaking their pact of honesty, ‘there was no event. Me and Jen just never got along.’
‘It must be difficult for you,’ Flanagan said, letting the comment hang between them.
‘What must be?’ Mina asked, taking the bait.
‘Well, there’s obviously some deep-seated animosity between you and your sister. In your own reflection, maybe you don’t simply see yourself, Mina. Maybe you see Jennifer too.’
If only the doctor knew what Mina saw whenever she confronted her own reflection.
‘Let me guess,’ she said, ‘the reason I’m seeing fairies is because I don’t get along with my twin? Did you read that in a textbook somewhere?’
‘That’s not what I said, Mina,’ the doctor replied defensively. ‘And no, you’d be surprised how rarely fairies are mentioned in the text.’ Here he chuckled to himself and snapped his notebook shut.
‘Is that it?’ she asked, feeling strangely dismissed.
‘You seem perfectly sane to me, Mina, as I’d expected.’
Flanagan had that rare knack of coming across as both a man of some standing and also one who’d rather sit down and let anybody else take charge.
‘Why though? Everyone else thinks I’m mental.’
‘Well, here’s the thing, Mina. Yours isn’t an isolated case. I don’t quite know how to explain it to you. This whole fairy thing is a recent phenomenon. These past few months there’ve been more and more people coming in, convinced that someone isn’t who they say they are. It’s been kept on the Q.T. for the most part, of course. But like any secret, it’s only a matter of time before it gets out into the open.’
Mina had studied the doctor as he’d spoken. If he was selling her a lie, then he was one of the most gifted salesmen she’d ever met.
‘The fairies that you mentioned when the Gardaí spoke to you,’ Flanagan said, ‘you referred to these as changelings, is that right?’
Was this a test of Mina’s honesty? Or had the doctor’s silken demeanour concealed a trap that would have her diagnosed as mad before she’d even been given a fresh pair of slippers? Trawling the depths of his tired eyes offered no clue as to his intentions. But he seemed honest enough, and the yellow one seemed to trust him.
‘Why do you ask?’ she said, still siding with the cautious approach.
‘Well,’ he replied, sitting back in his chair as though he’d just clocked out of work, ‘believe it or not, Mina, it’s always changelings. I’ve discussed it with some colleagues of mine, not that they’re dealing with the same cases that I am, but it’s healthy in my line of work to indulge in a little counsel occasionally. One suggested that it could be a result of our natural penchant for distrusting each other. If someone looks or behaves in a manner that we are unaccustomed to, then it’s often simpler to mark them out as different, untrustworthy even. I don’t think this is accurate, personally. But it actually is quite fascinating, to be honest, how fairy lore has affected the Irish psyche as far back as our records survive. There was a case back in 1895 when a woman was—’
‘Bridget Cleary,’ Mina interjected. ‘Yeah, I’ve read about her.’
Flanagan’s surprise manifested in a smile. ‘Indeed,’ he said, ‘Bridget Cleary, poor woman. Such a horrible end. It’s definitely the strangest case file that I’ve ever had the horror of studying. But do you know what’s always struck me as odd about it, Mina?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Her husband’s sanity,’ he replied. ‘The verdict was that he’d been misled, shall we say, by his own superstitious beliefs. It was the fault of a folk tale and not the man’s mental faculties. One would think that after what he’d done, and in the manner in which he did it, that Michael Cleary would have been committed to a psychiatric institution. But instead he was locked up in a regular run-of-the-mill prison.’
It would seem that Doctor Flanagan knew more than he’d first let on.
‘You don’t think he was mad either?’ Mina asked him.
‘Those who’d examined him certainly didn’t seem to think so.’
‘But the jury saw the body, didn’t they?’
Flanagan sat forward, seemingly enjoying the discussion. ‘Even under the circumstances of the trial, Mina, they would never have seen the whole body, for the sake of the woman’s modesty and due to the very nature by which she was murdered. The jury saw only what remained of Bridget’s face.’
‘And that was all the convincing they needed?’
‘Can’t say that I blame them,’ the doctor said. ‘Identifying even a perfectly preserved corpse can be a harrowing enough experience.’
Gooseflesh peppered across Mina’s skin like a cold static. The cases he’d been dealing with had clearly arisen in the man a rare fascination. But surely, given his field of expertise, a level-headed approach to such matters was a necessity lest his own lucidity be called into question.
‘You told me that you were handling cases like my own,’ Mina said. ‘What did you mean when you said that?’
‘I’m a criminal psychologist who deals with a very particular type of delusion,’ he replied. ‘Believe me, it’s come as some surprise to me too. But then, such is life. The fact of these occurrences becoming so frequent has necessitated the creation of my role.’
‘So you’re like some kind of fairy doctor,’ Mina asked him.
‘Precisely,’ he replied, wiping the tiredness from the corner of an eye. ‘It doesn’t do wonders for a man’s sleep. I can tell you that much for free. Everyone that I’ve spoken to – those who’ve vouched for similar experiences to your own – all have one thing in common.’
The doctor stared at her, evincing that same honesty that they’d agreed upon.
‘They were all terrified, Mina,’ he said. ‘And in my professional opinion, they were all telling me the truth.’
‘Did anyone mention a woodland to you?’ Mina asked him, shuffling forward so as to sit on the edge of the bed.
‘A woodland?’ Flanagan echoed. ‘As in a fairy fort?’
Mina nodded with an unrestrained eagerness.
‘No,’ he replied, sitting back as he considered the question. ‘None so far anyway, though it is an interesting thought given the lore. More often than not, the reports coming in refer to people behaving out of sorts – personality switches and the absence of memories that hint at the replacement by some imposter.’
‘Why don’t the Guards interrogate them? The imposters, I mean.’
Flanagan sighed. ‘They’re trying to play down this phenomenon, Mina. If they were to start testing the authenticity of people’s identities, then that would only do their efforts a disservice.’
‘But you believe it?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure what to believe. My experience lies in evaluating a person’s psychology – distinguishing the stable mind from the dubious – and what we’re discussing now is something quite different entirely. This is the realm of fantasy, Mina, and as such must be regarded with an armoured sense of scepticism.’
Mina edged her bum even closer to the edge of the mattress, meeting the man directly in the eye. There was no knowing how long the Guards were going to keep her detained, and so maybe the doctor could put his freedom to good use.
‘Do you know about Sean Kilmartin?’ she asked him, clasping her hands together.
‘Kilmartin,’ he repeated with an air of recognition, ‘yes, I saw a piece about him on the news. He’s discovered another cave in the Burren or possibly something more significant. I’ve actually come across his father’s work quite a lot in my own research. He was something of a specialist in all this fairy lore that I’ve been wading through. The man disappeared some years ago, apparently. No one’s yet uncovered any trace as to what happened to him. Who knows…’ he grinned ‘…maybe the fairy folk played some hand in it.’
She yearned to tell Flanagan the truth – to share with him the professor’s final days and the grim reality that he’d jokingly touched upon. But despite his outward willingness to believe, Mina was reluctant to seed any doubts that might grow to cast a shadow over her sanity. The tale of her time in the woodland was a bridge too far for those who hadn’t survived the experience for themselves. Besides, the past couldn’t be cleansed of its horrors – not even the most heavy-handed lobotomy could quell those nightmares – and they were now more alive than ever in the present, and that was Mina’s sole priority – the now and the future and the lives that could still be saved.
‘Why do you ask?’ the doctor pressed, his eyes conveying a genuine curiosity.
How could she possibly phrase this without tarnishing his take on her?
‘I think there’s something in the Burren,’ she said simply.
Flanagan frowned as he considered her response. ‘I don’t think I understand, Mina.’
Her own sister hadn’t believed her when she’d wept over the phone. What was she even thinking trying to convince a state psychologist?
‘What if I told you that the changelings are real?’ she said, to which he sat back. ‘I Hypothetically speaking, where do you think they might have been hiding all these centuries?’
The man’s unblinking gaze studied Mina as he pondered the question. ‘I suppose,’ he replied, ‘going by the mythology and the theory that they’re descended from the Tuatha Dé Danann, then I would have to say underground. That is, after all, where they were banished, wasn’t it?’
Bravo, Doctor, bravo. Mina let his answer ripen between them for a moment.
‘So, let me get this straight,’ he said, sitting forward again, resting elbows on thighs, ‘you’re saying that if these changelings do indeed exist, then there’s a possibility that they’re…’ here he paused to consider the implication ‘…underneath the Burren?’
Mina nodded. ‘It’s no coincidence that David Kilmartin’s son is the one up there doing the digging. That’s where I was trying to get to before I wound up here.’ She cast her eyes disappointedly around the walls of her cell. ‘I was hoping to stop him before it was too late.’
‘How do you suppose you were going to do that?’ Flanagan asked; the tone of his voice suggesting that he’d clocked back into work mode.
This was another answer that was off limits. But instead of opting for an outright lie, Mina chose to simplify the truth. ‘I just want to talk to him – that’s all.’
The man’s expression lightened, seemingly content that her plan wasn’t to climb to the top of the Burren and kill Sean Kilmartin in cold blood.
‘I told Lynch,’ Mina said, ‘but she didn’t believe me.’
‘Be careful what you say to that woman,’ Flanagan said. ‘I’ve crossed paths with her before. She’s quick to judge. And once she comes to her own conclusion there’s very little that can be done to sway her otherwise. Tell you what, I’ll look into this excavation and see what I can dig up, if you’ll excuse the pun.’
‘Will you please just go there and shut it down?’
The doctor smiled sadly at her, too honest to tell a lie. ‘I can’t promise that, Mina. But trust me, if I hear of anything out of the ordinary up there, I’ll be on the case immediately.’
It was the most she could have hoped for, and of that she was grateful. ‘Thank you.’
Flanagan rose to his feet and slipped the notebook and pen back into his coat pocket. He arched out his arms in a yawn before his jaded eyes returned to the yellow one.
‘These people who your parrot doesn’t trust,’ he said, ‘they’re the changelings, aren’t they?’
‘What makes you say that?’
He knocked three times on the door, signalling the end of their session.
‘Just something I’ve heard,’ he said, smiling back at her. ‘The birds are cleverer than we give them credit for. Take care of yourself, Mina. Try to get some rest.’