The tent was their sanctuary from the cold wind that ruled that rock – a haven of historical breakthroughs whose air of significance had been so reminiscent of his father’s study, when the alchemy of their ambitions caused all those threads to shimmer golden. Given the solitude that came to define Sean’s research these past years, being part of a team proved the greatest novelty of all, and it was never more infectious than in those inaugural days when his discovery was a naked stem, its potential unflowered and unknown. But a dark cloud had descended over the site, chilling more than just its stone. And those embers of fellowship that he’d so hopefully kindled between Ash and himself seemed to burn a little less brightly since returning to the surface.
With so much equipment now established underground, the tent was never so spacious. Sean stood by the monitor, watching the camera feed of the main chamber where a boy – delicate as cheap glass and just as useless – was being helped into the harness, hyperventilating as though the air around him were too thin to breathe. Meanwhile, Ash was monotonously tapping away at her translation, within a short arm’s reach of him and yet sadly more distant than ever before. Sean had already apologised profusely for his behaviour earlier. Frustratingly, however, she didn’t see any cause to in turn apologise to him. And so it was that a tensity still skulked between them, salient not in her words but in their sparsity. Ian, too, had spoken with him less freely since the incident with Ellie.
Their true colours were never so conspicuous amidst all that grey. They’d been perfectly content with Sean’s role as their superfluous benefactor. But neither seemed to enjoy his newfound eagerness to lead the charge. History may well record him as the excavation’s prevailing cog, but nothing could have been further from the truth. In Ash’s eyes, he was probably no more than Professor David Kilmartin’s son and the feckless heir to the dead man’s treasury. Perhaps this was why his father had loosened the bond between them in his latter days. Research and its rewards were dividable. But the prize could only be held aloft by one.
‘Right, then guys.’ The techie’s voice came through the radio. ‘Let me know when you’re ready. I’ll be waiting for Richie at the top. Just tell him to stay calm.’
The boy had lost his nerve and radioed Ian in a panic. Ash thought it was best to get him out before he spooked the others; their herd mentality made every isolated case a potential pandemic. There were sounds down there that none could explain – a scratching deep within the walls like an infestation of fat-bellied rats and the occasional dull thud louder than all their beating hearts combined. But the Burren – inhospitable as it may have seemed on the surface – was anything but a wasteland. Who was to say what animals made their homes there, burrowed between its shadowy cracks, innocently disturbing the darkness and upsetting all their tender dispositions like a creaky floorboard in an empty house, leading their imaginations astray.
‘Is the kid okay?’ Sean asked, broadcasting his concerns in a weak attempt to curry favour.
Ash’s eyes didn’t lift nor did her fingers quit typing. ‘Claustrophobia, Sean, it’s more common than you think. And most people don’t realise they suffer from it until the walls start to close in around them.’
It’s a good job you brought so many of them, he thought, but knew not to voice it. As cruelly candid as it may have been, he wasn’t going to win her back to his side by disparaging her precious undergraduates. He watched as the student began to rise up into the emptiness of the chamber, suspended by the chain that was their only means of getting in and out – a tediously slow one at that.
‘Are any of them still hearing things?’ Sean asked.
‘A few,’ Ash replied. ‘I had a word with them but they don’t like to talk about it. Some of them straight-up refused to work on the seal.’
‘When did the last team go down?’ he asked, imagining how it would look should the harness snap, dropping this Richie kid like a rock.
‘About fifteen minutes ago,’ she replied. ‘Why?’
Would it have been too much trouble to meet his eye when she spoke to him?
‘I want to ask them how deep they’ve gone. It’s been hours now.’
‘It’s not a race, Sean.’ She sighed under her breath. ‘Excavations take time.’
The crew had taken turns whittling away at the seal, four at a time, switching out every half an hour – a dismally dark and loathed task that he’d heard more than a few of them complaining about. Their worst fears of being buried alive were unfounded, of course. That stairwell had outlasted countless generations before they’d ever set a foot on it. Still, Sean was glad that he’d their able hands to do the work for him, like a general calling the shots a safe distance from the frontline, conscripting fodder for the greater good.
None of the radios worked past the point where the drone died. Only the cheap battery-powered torches were unaffected. Ian blamed the dead zone on all that copper but even he’d sounded unconvinced by his own explanation. Sean relied on updates when each team completed their shift and ascended the stairs, taking care not to impale themselves. The going was slow but Ash – ever cautious – wouldn’t have it any other way.
Without consulting with Sean, she had assembled a separate team to examine what she’d classed as an anomaly in the wall – the possibility of another tunnel branching off from the main chamber – where a fissure appeared to have been purposely concealed. Even if that were the case, it lacked the width and craft of the other portal, and so Sean failed to fathom what all the fuss was about. His priority was the seal.
‘How’s the translation going?’ he asked, if only to colour the silence.
Still Ash seemed to care only for the desk in front of her and not the man who’d paid for it. ‘I’m getting there,’ she replied, indulging in the slightest and most unexpected of smiles, ‘and I think you’re going to like what—’
The tent’s door suddenly flapped open as Ian strode inside, breathless as he always was after the briefest exercise, dramatising his role on the team to make it appear more significant.
‘Richie’s taking some time for himself,’ he said, interrupting Ash and sitting on one of the few crates left in the corner. ‘I told him to head down to base camp, maybe go for a walk and get some fresh air.’
‘Is he okay?’ Ash asked, actually ceasing her incessant tapping in the techie’s company.
‘A little shaken,’ he replied, ‘that’s all. He had a bit of a panic attack down there, but the others handled him pretty well. He was working on that wall of yours.’
‘Oh?’ she said, swivelling in her chair to face him. ‘And how’s it looking?’
‘He told me that there’s definitely something down there, probably another chamber. They hacked out a little opening for themselves but it’s still too tight to get through. If we’d thought to bring an extra drone I could be inside there right now. Oh, and he was complaining about the smell. Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s another copper factory.’
Sean sniggered at the remark. ‘A smell? Did they think this job was a holiday or something?’
It was jealousy – plain and simple – though it’d taken him until now to realise that. Owing to his father’s insistence that their work be conducted in secrecy, friendship was a bond he’d only read about in books. He’d never had what these students each took for granted – common interests and laughter, and someone who’d listen to them on matters other than Ireland’s lost fucking history.
‘They just kids, Sean,’ Ian said, glancing over to Ash, unamused. ‘Give them a break, will you? They’re trying their best.’
The silence that followed filled the tent like a toxin, but surprisingly it was Ash’s voice that came as the blast of fresh air they’d needed.
‘Okay,’ she said with a smile, slapping her thighs, ‘I think it’s time we talked about the writing on the wall.’
Both men locked eyes; neither had expected this sudden surge in spirits. Ash jumped to her feet and skipped over to Sean, throwing her arms around him in an embrace that he’d been almost hesitant to accept, such was his confusion. But her arms squeezed him too tightly to resist, and his face was soon buried in her hair, breathing in its scent like some thrilling elixir, righting all the wrongs that had marred the day’s significance.
‘Sit over there,’ she said, giddy with excitement, directing him over to where Ian was sitting.
Sean did as he was told and noticed his techie flashing a mouthful of tobacco-stained teeth, just as eager to hear what had chased away the dark clouds so abruptly.
‘I’ve translated it,’ Ash said, arms spread wide, her coat trailing open by her sides, ‘and your father was right, Sean.’
He stared at her, dumbstruck. His father had been right about many things and wrong about so many more, and yet even his failures seemed to overshadow Sean’s triumphs. The impression he’d sold to the world throughout his life was one of a tenacious seeker of the truth. When stood at his lectern, facing a full hall of flowering minds, he was infallible. His knowledge of the lore and aptitude for expounding it drew attendance from across the disciplines. In private, however, he became a man enslaved, convinced by his own rambling theses that changelings had embedded themselves in Irish society; an insidious element, like the cancer that stole his beloved wife, benign until detected, as though the act of revealing it provoked its malignant tendencies. In his latter days the man had become especially erratic, and those social charms and captivations so common to the campus rarely followed him home.
Before his lectures he would scrutinise those in attendance. Heaven knows what tell he was searching for; what feature or mannerism could betray the presence of those imposters he’d feared were following him. His students saw only the façade, and never the paranoia concealed behind it. His son alone was privy to that. If the fairies had, as he’d hypothesised, coexisted in furtive disharmony with the human race for these past centuries, then any hopes of isolating them for research purposes was a fool’s errand at best. They were far too proficient in their gifts to ever be identified and altogether too secretive to leave any such intrusions unchecked. To study them properly, in order to understand how they did it – how they changed – then his father believed that he needed to trace them back to their source. Wherever that madness may have led him, he’d never found his way home.
‘Go on so, tell me,’ Sean said, sitting by Ian’s side on a plastic crate even though he couldn’t keep his feet still, ‘what has the old man been right about this time?’
He’d never seen Ash like this, tingling from some knowledge that she could barely keep from exploding out her mouth. Whatever secrets she’d uncovered, Sean knew from her energy alone that it was about to change everything.
‘It’s more than just a message from the Milesians,’ she began, ‘it’s a record of what happened and, I suppose, why it happened. This is it! This is the indisputable proof that you’ve been looking for, Sean.’
Ian chuckled to himself. ‘Is this about the ending to your story last night?’
Ash pointed at him. ‘Exactly!’ she replied eagerly. ‘This is what really happened.’
Sean had dreamt of this moment since he was a child – when his father would conclude the Tuatha Dé Danann’s legacy with vague ideas that never sat right with one so young. Questions weren’t endings. Answers were.
‘You were right about them coexisting in harmony,’ Ash said. ‘There was no war, and the Tuatha Dé Danann didn’t disappear underground before the Milesians arrived because of some grim premonition. They lived together, just like you said, each race learning from the other. An era of peace, Sean, all record of which has been lost until now.’
‘The Ogham you translated said that?’ he asked, sitting forward, his whole body atremble.
Ash nodded. ‘Yeah, pretty much. The proof is there in writing!’
‘So what happened to this harmony of yours?’ Ian put in excitedly. ‘Sorry, this is actually interesting. And I thought you guys were just digging up some old rocks.’
‘I guess you could say that the old gods got a little too curious for their own good,’ she replied mischievously. ‘Not all of them, mind you. It wouldn’t be fair to tar them all with the same brush. Most of them were perfectly content to let the humans exist amongst them, keeping their distance, of course. Both races lived within their respective clans and any intermingling was very much carried out in a learned capacity. You know, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. But some of the Tuatha Dé Danann weren’t so well behaved and intervened in ways that they shouldn’t have.’
‘Like what?’ the techie asked, much to Sean’s chagrin.
Just let the woman fucking talk.
‘They didn’t understand what it was to be mortal – the cycle of life and death and how humanity endured it. Their actions weren’t malicious. They were more akin to innocence, or perhaps ignorance is a better word for it. Anyway, sorry, I’m rambling. There were cases when they took on the identity of someone who’d passed away. They were probably hoping to soothe the family’s sorrow – by replacing the one they were grieving for – but as you can imagine, that didn’t land so well. The writings are vague in places, but I don’t think the humans realised what the Tuatha Dé Danann were capable of until that happened, and that changed everything for the worse down the line. The fact of them being able to impersonate anyone must have come as quite a shock. But they sorted out their differences, for a while at least.’
‘Why?’ Ian asked. ‘What happened then?’
‘A child,’ Ash replied glossing her tone with a respectful solemnity. ‘A changeling replaced a child. Did away with it too, if the writings are to be believed. One of them wanted to experience a mortal life, short as it was – to be brought up in a loving home, to live as part of a family, and feign the ageing process that was to them such an absurdity.’
‘So the stories are grounded in reality,’ Sean said.
‘Exactly,’ Ash said, her smile once again at full beam. ‘And after that incident, distrust was justifiably rampant. What followed next could be compared to a witch hunt. Anyone who acted out of character or whose appearance altered for whatever reason – be it from illness or injury – was suspected of being a changeling. And I’m pretty sure, Sean, that you can guess how they went about proving who was human and who wasn’t.’
‘Fire,’ he replied, his mouth lolling open.
‘Just like the superstitions say,’ she confirmed. ‘And you know what this means, don’t you?’
Sean stared at her, too awestricken to collect his thoughts.
‘The Kilmartin theory is right,’ Ash said, playfully clapping her hands. ‘They were all changelings. Every single one of them.’
‘Okay, that’s all very interesting,’ Ian put in, raising his hand like an eager schoolboy to get her attention, ‘but what about the witch hunt?’
‘Society was tearing itself apart and the Tuatha Dé Danann held themselves responsible, which was fair. And like you said last night, Sean, the humans were like pets to them. War and conflict were pains of the past. Bonds had been made. There were friendships, trade, a quality of life that wasn’t hampered by the human race, but rather was seen to be enhanced by it. So they opted for what you might call a hard reset.’
‘What do you mean?’ Sean asked.
Ash was pacing on the spot now, choosing her words before she spoke.
‘There could never be peace so long as the humans suspected that the changelings were secretly living amongst them,’ she said eventually. ‘And that instance with the child wasn’t an isolated case, apparently. So a deal was made, only a temporary one, mind you, but a deal nonetheless.’
‘I knew it,’ Sean said, rising to his feet. ‘The Tuatha Dé Danann went underground by their own volition. There was no way they could have been defeated.’
‘Would you ever sit down.’ Ian laughed, patting the crate beside him. ‘Jesus, you’re like two kids.’
‘What was the deal?’ Sean asked, ignoring him as he crossed his arms into a knot, unable to stand still.
Ash took her time, watching him with a smile that made the moment feel all the more timeless. ‘The two races agreed to split completely. Changelings on one side. Humans on the other. Gods and mortals divided, just as nature intended.’
‘And why did you call it a hard reset?’ the techie asked, jumping on the terminology.
‘To make sure that there was no more mixing between the two races,’ she explained, ‘insidious or otherwise, the Tuatha Dé Danann agreed to go under the earth, not forever, just for a while. The writings don’t say for how long, but that hardly matters now. The idea was that when they returned to the light, their kind would abide by the new rules set in place, forbidding them from interfering with human lives and society. No more suspicions. No more witch hunts. The peace that they’d come to appreciate could return.’
‘But it didn’t, did it?’ Ian asked. ‘The peace, I mean.’
Ash shook her head. ‘The Tuatha Dé Danann had mastered the human face. They could alter any aspect of it on a whim, but they obviously hadn’t learned to see through it – to the truth that you conceal behind smiles and laughter.’
‘They were betrayed,’ Sean whispered, finally sitting back down.
‘The day came – the one that the Tuatha Dé Danann had agreed upon; some reluctantly, others more eager to make amends,’ Ash said. ‘Your ancestors gathered around their makeshift tombs, all of them waving goodbye to the gods so foolish as to trust them. And when they’d all descended into the darkness, the humans sealed them in, trapping the changelings in the very prisons that they’d built for themselves.’
Sean couldn’t believe it. His father had been right. He imagined the old man’s face – so often laden with a frown as he laboured over the cryptic resources at his disposal – now dressed in a smile as euphoric as his own.
‘And when was this exactly?’ Ian asked.
For a man who’d ridiculed their research the night before, he now seemed to be hanging on Ash’s every word.
‘Long enough ago for them to change,’ she replied.
‘What do you mean?’ the techie pressed, his whole face scrunched up in confusion.
‘Think about it,’ Ash said. ‘The Tuatha Dé Danann had the ability to change any aspect of their appearance. They chose to resemble humankind, but that doesn’t mean that was their original form. And in the dark, underground, tunnelling through the earth for centuries, of course they changed. Bodies would have grown skinnier and taller, relying on long limbs and claws to burrow out their nests. Eyes would have probably turned nocturnal over time. So, too, would their skin; denied sunlight for so long, they may have developed an aversion to it. The flawless beauty that Sean told you about was gone. These gods became monsters. No, sorry, that’s wrong. They didn’t become monsters. Humankind made them that way.’
‘But how were they trapped underground?’ Ian asked. ‘Wouldn’t it be just as easy for them to dig their way up instead of down?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ash replied, pouting at her lack of an answer. ‘The writings in the chamber allude to some secret that they’d learned from the Tuatha Dé Danann themselves. Call it magic, if you want. For all we know it was some lost technology or a fucking ritual. Sure look at the shaft and that stairwell in the main chamber – the way they’ve been cut so perfectly. The Milesians definitely learned a few tricks from the old gods before they turned on them. Anyway, regardless of how they trapped them underground, it worked. Once they went down, they weren’t coming back up anytime soon.’
Sean stood up again to catch Ash’s eye. ‘But they didn’t all go along with the agreement, did they? There were still those who knew better than to trust the human race.’
Ash grinned at him, like a teacher proud of her smartest pupil. ‘You really are a Kilmartin, aren’t you?’
‘And what happened to them?’ Ian asked jumping up to his feet to stay a part of the discourse.
‘They’ve been living amongst us the entire time,’ Sean said, looking to Ash, ‘just like my father used to tell me. Their bodies wouldn’t have suffered the same changes as the others, would they? They wouldn’t have had those same nocturnal limitations forced upon them.’
‘Right again.’ She smiled. ‘They could walk around like you or me; actually quite literally as you or me. But they were the minority after their kind had been betrayed. They would have grouped together, moved together, survived together, and the humans around them would have been none the wiser.’
‘You mean, they’re real?’ Ian asked nervously, the revelations having finally registered.
Ash smiled at him, but before she could speak another word, the walkie-talkie on the desk crackled aloud.
‘Aisling, come in,’ said a voice that Sean didn’t recognise. ‘Are you there?’
‘Go ahead,’ she replied, shaking her head at the timing.
‘We’re nearly in.’
‘What do you mean?’ Ash asked. ‘You’re nearly in what?’
More static fizzled in the tent. ‘That entranceway we found,’ came the reply. ‘It’s a tunnel, and it goes way deeper than we thought.’