Áine shakes her head. It feels like the movement should dislodge the delicately balanced daisies in her hair, but it does not.
"Nah. He'll leave me be. I don't interest him. But you'd be a different story altogether now. Come on. You need to get out of here."
Áine leads the way back into the woods.
"It's easy to get lost here," Áine says, flitting ahead of you like a pale shadow. "When the Saxons came to Ireland, they drew lines on paper. Compasses and pencils are their real weapons, not blades and bullets. They were very clever and very patient. They measured and drew the wildness out of the bogs and the mountains, the woods and the loughs. They bound it up in their surveyors' chains. Their maps took the land away. But some places like Glenkildove were folded and twisted so that the mapmakers couldn't get at them. You know? Like those yokes in outer space. Black holes. Glenkildove wouldn't fit on the British maps. And it swallowed up the surveyors and the scientists and the soldiers they sent into it, just like a black hole. They got lost. Glenkildove is always hungry, just like its Beast. It's easy to get lost here."
Still talking, she turns a corner and is suddenly gone into the undergrowth.
"Ewu?"
It is Cormac. He is sitting under a tree by the side of the path.
"Cormac? I think we need to get out of here."
"Cormac?" I feel relieved to see him after the strange experiences of the woods and the standing stones. "It's good to see you."
"There you are! Come on. We've got to get home. Your temper tantrum might mean we're all going to get soaked in the rain."
Next