The Firehills by Steve Alten Read Free Book Online Page B

whirlwind, starting at their feet, and then they were
gone. And last of all, that girl—”
    “I told you about her, Mum. I hate her!”
    “Now, now, dear,” said Mrs. P. “Hate is a strong
word. You say”—she returned to Megan—“that he spoke before he
vanished?’
    “The Hollow Hills,” said Sam, looking up from the
floor.
    “The Hollow Hills?” Mrs. P. jumped to her feet.
“Come on, darlings, follow me. And bring your tea.”
    With surprising speed, she led them up the stairs, past
the guest rooms, to the highest landing of the house. Here she selected a key
from the bunch that hung at her waist and opened the final door.
    “Wow!” said Sam, following her into the room. Mrs.
P.’s private quarters were in the attic of the old house, and the room they
had entered—a kind of combined study and living room—had windows on three
sides. The farthest, in the gable end, overlooked the sea. Light slanted in
dusty columns and pooled on the floor—or what was visible of it.
    “Sit yourselves down, dears!” called Mrs. P., bustling
over to the bookshelves. She returned with an armful of books and plonked
herself in a chair at one of the desks. Humming tunelessly, she leafed through
several of the volumes, then cried, “Aha! Here we go!” She began to
summarize the text in front of her. “The Sidhe—or Tuatha de
Danaan—described in The Book of Leinster as
‘gods and not gods’ . . . blah, blah . . . sidhe is apparently also the Gaelic word for the wind . . . blah . . . here
we go—
    “‘The Host of the Air’ or ‘The Host of the Hollow
Hills,’
    the inhabitants of the ‘Otherworld,’ who roam the
country four times a year, around the four great festivals: Samhain, Imbolc,
Beltane, and Lammas. Well, there you have it.” She looked at them over the
top of the book. “Beltane is—or was—May Day. That’s why they’re
around now.”
    “So,” asked Charly, “what about these Hollow
Hills?”
    “Well,” replied Mrs. P., “the Hollow Hills were once
thought to be barrows—you know, burial chambers?”
    Sam and Charly nodded. They were very familiar with
barrows from their adventure the previous year in Dorset.
    “But that word comes from the Old English word beorh, which makes no distinction between artificial
mounds and natural hills. So there seems to be some confusion. It was once
thought that tales of fairies taking people into the Hollow Hills referred to
barrows, which are obviously hollow, because they’re tombs, but this”—she
tapped the page—“suggests that the ancient accounts might have been
referring to actual hills—a kind of mystical Otherworld inside the hills of
Britain. There’s even a suggestion here that they might be bigger on the
inside than they are on the outside, if you see what I mean.”
    “And what about the Sidhe?” asked Megan. “Is there
any more information about them? We know where they came from, but who are
they?”
    “There are mentions of various kings of the Faery Folk,
or the Gentry, as they are sometimes known. Where are we? Yes, here—the most
powerful of the kings appears to be Finnbheara, or Finnvarr, of Cnoc Meadha in
County Galway. His bride is the Lady Una—”
    “That’s her!” exclaimed Charly. “The girl in the
leather jacket. That’s her. I know it is!”
    Mrs. P. looked over her book. “What makes you say that,
dear?”
    Charly frowned. “I don’t know. I just . . . suddenly
knew, when you said her name.”
    “Mmmmm . . . Anyway,” continued Mrs. P., “the Tuatha
de Danaan were defeated by the Milesians—that’s Amergin’s mob—and
largely disappeared. But then they begin to crop up in legend; the Faery Folk,
dwelling within hills from which music and feasting can be heard; traveling the land on horseback or in the form of whirlwinds.
Apparently, when country folk see leaves whirling in the road, they still bless
themselves, thinking that the Sidhe are passing by.”
    “So,” sighed Megan, “it’s clear