20. Twenty-One Flynn

CHAPTER TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE: FLYNN

" O kay, tiger. You've had time to gird your loins. We need to talk."

Maeve plonked down on the beanbag in front of me, her head blocking the screen so I couldn't see who Arnie was shooting at. I had a smart comment ready to rip, but the expression on Maeve's face said I'd better not chance it. I paused the movie with my good hand, and raised myself up, the movement sent a splitting pain through my injured arm.

"Hit me with it, Einstein."

"Do I need to tell you what a monumental idiot you were, dragging Blake into the pub and then picking a fight?" Maeve said.

When she puts it like that…

I shook my head. "You don't need to tell me. I was a fecking eejit. I was just so angry . They threatened you and I snapped."

"You get this was your idea to stir up the villagers with your statue? Now they're all stirred up you can't go getting mad at them for the hysteria we created. And the fact they know about Aline is all the more reason why you shouldn't have been in there. This is dangerous, Flynn. They broke your arm. You could have gotten killed."

"I don't care what they do to me. I'll scrap ‘em all if I have to. But if they hurt you, I'll?—"

"You'll what, Flynn? You'll turn into Arthur? Don't do that. I can only handle one warrior with a Lancelot complex. What's going on with you?"

I shrugged. "Dunno."

"You do know. Spill it. Do you remember what we agreed to only yesterday? No more secrets. No more keeping things hidden away."

"You're going to think it's so dumb."

"Try me."

"Did I ever tell you when I first decided I wanted to be an artist?"

Maeve shook her head.

"I was living in Dublin with my uncle. He trafficked drugs around Ireland – the hard shite like horse, crack, yokes for the clubbers. This one day, he had a bigwig from the Irish mob coming over to negotiate a deal, and he kicked me out of the house because ‘your ugly mug'll turn him right off' or some shite. I didn't have anywhere to go, and it was pissing down so I couldn't just sit at the dog park and pretend all the dogs were mine. So I went to the Irish National Gallery."

"I thought you hated art galleries."

"Easy on, let me finish my story!" I took another sip of Rowan's tea. It was weird, but the heat from the drink seemed to warm right through my body, especially my throbbing broken arm. Rowan was a right healing genius. "As I was walking around, gawping at Caravaggio's Taking of Christ and Morisot's Le Corsage Noir and feeling absolutely nothing, I noticed this large class of art students sitting down in the main gallery for a lesson. I had a sketchbook in my bag, so I pulled it out and hovered at the back and tried to look like I'd paid a gazillion quid to be there like the rest of them."

"The tutor lectured on about Caravaggio – how the artist pioneered the strong light contrasts and moved his figures close to the picture plane to really pull the viewer in and create dramatic tension. And even though I think Caravaggio is fecking shite, my hand moved across the page. I couldn't help it. In minutes I had this sketch of the figures, only I'd given them all dog heads."

"Of course," Maeve said.

"This girl was standing beside me, watching me sketch. ‘You're really good,' she whispered. I kept my head down. I didn't want to say anything. ‘You're not supposed to be here, are you?' I shook my head, hoping she wouldn't rat me out. Instead, she grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the gallery.

"She took me to an abandoned shoe factory, where a bunch of artists had set up a workshop and gallery. It was wicked – just this big warehouse where people hung out and made art and swigged bottle-shop whiskey. I started going there every day, helping the girl – her name was Moira – finish a big mural on one of the warehouse walls. Most of the artists were like me – from the wrong side of the tracks, mixed up in gangs and street fighting. There were tensions, because some artists are territorial wankers, and no one trusted outsiders. Some of them were mad as a box of frogs at Moira for bringing me along. But they tolerated me because Moira liked me and I wasn't some rich Trinners kid slumming it. In that warehouse, we were friends. We had hope."

"So the day Corbin showed up asking about me, there was trouble. He looked like a rich Trinners kid. He got the shit kicked out of him and I wasn't even there that day. They told me about it later. But he came back a week later, and the week after that, and finally he cornered me and told me who he was and what I was and that he wanted me to come back to England with him."

"What'd you do?" Maeve leaned forward.

"What do you think I did? I laughed in his fecking face. I didn't need no fairy godmother in a Blood Lust t-shirt dragging me back to some draughty castle. I'd found my people. I was going to be a street artist. I had Moira. I sent him packing."

"A few days later, I showed up at the warehouse to work on another mural project with Moira, and she wasn't there. I waited around for ages, but she never showed, didn't answer her phone or nothing. She didn't show the next day, or the next. The other artists told me they didn't want me coming around no more. I asked about Moira, and they told me there'd been a fight downtown between two rival gangs, and she'd been down an alley working on a mural and got shot in the crossfire. The man who shot her? My uncle."

"Shit, Flynn," Maeve breathed.

I tried to wave my hand, to show her it wasn't a big deal, but I forgot my arm was broken, so when I moved it I dissolved into pain-filled whimpers. "Ow, serves my right for acting the maggot. So yah, I packed my things and left with Corbin the next day. I threw myself into Briarwood and protecting you. I went to Arizona for that year and met you in person and made a right fecking mess of things. I haven't thought about Moira in a long time, but last night during that ritual, these memories kept flashing in my head. I feel like she left me a legacy, and I've been failing her. And you."

"You're right," Maeve leaned down and kissed my forehead. "That is dumb. Tell me about the memories. What did you see?"

I gave a one-armed shrug. "My uncle and his friends telling me to stop acting the maggot while they smoked crack in the kitchen. Having a paint fight with Moira while we were painting a mural out the back of the warehouse. Moira smiling, always smiling. Moira's gravestone – cold and grey, just the opposite of her. The way I turned my art into a joke, like I turn everything into a joke, so that I didn't have to face my feelings about her or about leaving Dublin. But it never felt like a joke, especially not after I met Moira."

"Your art's not a joke. That statue of yours might save us all."

"There's a piece of me inside that statue. But it doesn't say anything, you know? It just makes people afraid and angry. I always thought that's kind of what I wanted, the way Banksy's stencils piss off the authorities. But…" I shrugged. "I dunno."

"You think maybe you want your art to say something else?"

"Maybe."

"It can, Flynn." Maeve grinned. "Just think, if the belief that statue collects actually ends up helping us defeat the Slaugh, you'll be famous for something else entirely."

"Yeah," I one-arm shrugged again. "I guess."

That wasn't what I wanted, though. I wanted to do right by Moira, give her art that was worthy of the gift she gave me. I wanted to do right by Maeve, too – the second woman who ever loved me and changed my life for the better.

Robert Smithers managed to use art to stop Daigh from taking Aline away from him. In a way, it was an act of love, although the act was selfish. Even Daigh, the evil fairy king, made art that moved people.

I didn't know the first thing about how to make art like that. Maybe I never would. And I couldn't explain it to Maeve the scientist.

She came over and settled on the couch beside me, perching gingerly on the edge so she wouldn't jolt my arm. "What did you see at Jane's house?"

My heart thudded. "We didn't get there. We were going to go after the pub, but then…" I sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm guess I'm nothing but a disappointment today."

"It's okay. I shouldn't send you guys to do my dirty work, anyway." Maeve curled in beside me. She ran her fingers over my arm. Spirit magic pierced my skin like needles, seeping into the bones and spreading warmth down my arm. With her other hand, Maeve reached for the chocolate guinness cake Rowan had made me. I reached for the remote to turn the TV back on, when Corbin's voice boomed through the castle.

"Maeve, everyone. Clara's here!"

"We're in the Great Hall!" I called back.

Clara bustled in, hugging a heavy old book against her chest. A tall bloke with tousled reddish hair and paint-speckled black clothes trailed in behind her. Clara didn't even say hello. She just dumped the book on the table – sending up a cloud of dust – and announced. "I've found it."

"Found what?" Arthur asked from the doorway. Rowan and Blake appeared behind him, and Aline after that, her face flushed and a small makeup compact in her hands.

"The answer we've been looking for." Clara stood back, her tiny chin held high, like the Queen ready to greet her subjects.

"Is the answer Bela Lugosi over there?" I asked, jabbing my good arm toward the bloke hovering behind Clara.

"Oh, yes! Forgive me. I was so excited." Clara grabbed the man's arm and shoved him forward. "This is my son, Ryan Raynard."

Ryan Raynard.

Mary Mother of Jesus.

Ryan Raynard the infamous reclusive modern impressionist artist who lived in the ancient hall just over the hill from Briarwood. Ryan Raynard whose paintings fetched millions of pounds at auction even though no one had seen him in public for ten years.

Ryan fecking Raynard is standing in my living room. And I'm lying around in my boxer shorts, covered in bandages, and wearing a t-shirt that said "Irish Whiskey Makes Me Frisky."

The famous artist gave a weird little half-bow, as though he wasn't quite sure what to do with himself, and stepped back behind Clara. He seemed to be more comfortable hiding in the shadows. I could kind of relate to that.

Except I couldn't, because he created brutal paintings that stole hearts, and I did Sweet Fanny Adams.

"Flynn, you okay?" Maeve waved her hand in front of my face. "Your eyes have gone all glassy. Does Rowan need to?—"

"No, no, I'm fine," I croaked. "Fiddle-le-de. Clara said she found the answer to our prayers. I'm just giddy with anticipation. What's happening with your shop, Clara?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. I want to show you what I found. It's all thanks to you," Clara beamed at me.

"Me?" Unlikely.

"When I saw Flynn's statue this morning, it reminded me of something I'd read in one of my own family spellbooks. I wasn't always a lone witch. I used to be part of a coven in London – the Soho coven, as it happened."

Maeve's eyebrow shot up. I remembered what she'd told me about what she and Corbin had seen at the coven's headquarters. It was hard to imagine lovely old Clara mixed up with that lot.

Clara laughed. "It wasn't always as sterile and…pompous. Back in my day, it was a real party house. They were good to me. I had to flee from Raynard Hall after Ryan's father…well, that's a story for another day. When I came to London I was a single mother with nothing, but they helped me find my feet again. I came into my own as a witch thanks to their guidance. I left shortly after Isadora took over as High Priestess – she and I didn't see eye to eye, as I'm sure she'd delight in telling you. When I left, I took this book with me. I shouldn't have it, but I had this idea that if Isadora got her hands on it, bad things would happen. Anyway, your statue made me remember this. Look."

She flipped through the book until she came to a page of tiny writing, the letters jammed close together. Maeve pulled the book toward her, scanning the words.

"This is a diary entry from one of the Soho coven who used to entertain army officers during World War I. During the Blitz, the coven would hide in a certain exclusive air raid shelter – imagine the scene, these whores trapped underground for hours and sometimes days with some of the top minds in England. The coven became a repository of all sorts of useful knowledge about the war effort.

"Eliza Flaharty was one of those whores. She was a songstress – she used to entertain the soldiers with cabaret-style performances at the house. Sometimes she'd be invited into the officer's barracks for private entertainments. As her lover held her in his arms, she asked him to tell her a story. He wanted to be a writer when he left the war, and so he was always inventing tragic and beautiful tales. This tale was about an officer in the British Army who was a double agent. He was loyal to Germany, but in his guise, he met and fell in love with a beautiful English woman. Torn between the two worlds, he didn't know what to do. The idea turned itself over and over in Eliza's head, and she wrote a song about the officer's divided loyalty. The problem was, the song was so haunting, so evocative, that fear spread through the regiment there was a double agent. They hanged Eliza's boy for a crime he never committed – a crime that was entirely imagined – all based on the power of belief."

"That's a horrible story!" Maeve slid the book back across the table.

"This horrible story tells us one key thing, that belief is a powerful form of magic that can make its own truth. It has the power to invert the world as we know it – fictions become fact, and facts a fiction. When the fae come, the world will see their own dead walking the earth. They will know that magic is real and deadly and powerful. And to whom will they turn to save them?"

"Witches," Rowan whispered.

"Exactly." Clara jabbed the book triumphantly. "Their belief in us is all we need to make fiction a fact, to bring about the result we desire – the banishing of the Slaugh, and the return of the fae to their realm. We have to make their belief in witches powerful enough that it will create the result we desire. Flynn has the right idea – witches exist now only in pop culture, as fragments of mythology turned into Halloween candy. We can make them real again through art."

I leaned forward, my chest tightening. Who knew art had such fierce power?

And then Moira's face flashed in front of my eyes, and I realised I'd known all along.

"There are many artists in the covens, as well as artists like my son here who aren't witches but have a connection to our cause. If we got them to flood the market with art that challenged and confronted, art that spoke of the destructive power of witchcraft, art that couldn't be explained away, then we will be able to create and channel that belief." Clara touched her son's arm. "Ryan here has just finished a beautiful painting about the witches of Crookshollow. He will release it into the market. It might draw some attention to what's going on in the village."

Might draw some attention? If a new Raynard painting hit the market it would send the entire art world on a tear. And if the subject made the press look at witches in Crookshollow…

They'd look at my statue. A statue that mysteriously appeared overnight, and couldn't be moved or destroyed. A statue that hummed with a mysterious power...

I glanced over at Maeve. The muscles in her face twitched as she worked through Clara's words. She doesn't believe Clara. It's art, not science. It's too irrational, too open to chance. It's ? —

"This is it," she breathed. "This is the weapon we have. This is how we can stop the Slaugh."