Scarlett - Cathy Cassidy [30]
Kian puts a finger to my lips. ‘Knew you’d like it.’ He grins. ‘But right now, we have to find some shelter. See those clouds on the hills beyond the lough? There’s rain coming, and soon!’
‘It’s sunny!’ I argue. ‘There’s no way…’
But when I squint at the distant hills, I see clouds I never even noticed before, trailing a soft grey mist. It rolls down the hillside towards us, blurring the purple-green heather.
‘What’ll we do?’ I panic. ‘We’re going to get soaked!’
‘Hey it’s only rain!’ Kian says. ‘It’s just nature, right? What’s the problem?’
We slide down from Midnight’s back and Kian grabs up the striped picnic blanket and pulls it round us like a cloak, draping it over our heads. The rain hits then, a wall of grey sliding over us, chasing the light away.
‘Crazy!’ I protest, shivering. ‘How can things change that fast? Is it because of the hills or something?’
‘Maybe. Sometimes, you can just smell it in the air. Everything’s perfect – then the storm hits.’
‘Story of my life,’ I say. My hair is dripping and rivulets of rain slide down my face.
Kian looks at me sidelong beneath the dripping blanket. ‘Change isn’t bad,’ he says to me. ‘Stuff happens. You have to accept it, adapt.’
‘I was happy,’ I argue.
‘So be happy again.’
‘It’s not that easy!’
‘It is that easy’ Kian grins. ‘Really – try it!’
I look at Kian, his lips slightly parted, the smell of wild mint on his breath. For one split second, I have the strongest urge to reach over and kiss him, but abruptly he drops the blanket and I’m draped in cold, soggy wool, squealing and yelling and chasing him down to the water’s edge, where Midnight is standing. The big black horse looks like he just walked out of the water. His coat gleams, and he raises his face to the storm, breath steaming.
Then the rain cloud slides past and the sun reappears. As if by magic, a perfect slice of rainbow appears on the hillside. You don’t get many rainbows in London. I know the science, sure – sunlight and rain create a prism of light, all the colours of the spectrum. It’s just that I’ve never seen one like this before. It arches over the hill, chasing away everything sad and dull and ordinary, making you believe in miracles.
‘Wow,’ I whisper.
‘That’s Connemara.’ Kian shrugs. ‘Sun, rain, rainbows, all in the space of five minutes. Storms and sunshine, darkness and light.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ I whisper.
Kian grins at me. ‘It is, of course,’ he says.
We are silent for a long while, and somewhere in the silence Kian finds my hand and holds it tight. We huddle at the edge of the lough, eating apples and damp fairy cakes, watching the rainbow fade.
Later, Kian walks me home along the lane, leading Midnight behind us. He’s stuck a sprig of velvet-green leaves behind my ear, so the whole world smells fresh and cool and good enough to eat, and he’s picking fuchsia flowers from the hedgerow, showing me how to suck the sweet juice from their bell-like centres. ‘Fairy food,’ he says.
‘Yeah, right,’ I laugh. ‘You don’t believe in fairies!’
‘Not the storybook kind, obviously.’ Kian grins. ‘That’s kid’s stuff. There’s definitely something to it, though – this is Ireland, after all!’
‘You’re crazy!’
‘Not at all,’ Kian says. ‘Did you never wonder where all those stories began? Will I tell you? They began right here. Long ago, there lived a people who were tall and bright and brave. They knew so much about the land and the sky and the sea that they were just about immortal. Then, one day, invaders came, a few at first, and then so many there could be no stopping them. They were ordinary folk, farmers, fishermen, soldiers, and they became the Irish people.’
‘What happened to the first lot?’ I ask.
‘They couldn’t leave and they wouldn’t fight,’ Kian tells me. ‘So they decided to live alongside the newcomers, but hidden away, like shadows. It was like two worlds existing alongside each other, one real, one magical. The ordinary people could sense they were there, and sometimes they’d leave offerings, ask for favours, especially