Chapter One
My best friend slapped a stranger’s arse so hard that she shook her hand with the pain. I was surprised she could feel anything after all the alcohol she’d consumed. But she deserved to drink herself into oblivion after an argument with her boyfriend of three years had ended in him saying he needed “a break.”
The guy laughed and kept walking, but his girlfriend whirled around and asked, “Are you for real?”
Beautiful, belligerent Zoe grabbed my arm for support while waving her fingers in front of the woman’s nose. “Pinch me and find out.”
The young woman scowled and pushed her boyfriend ahead of her on the path. “Waster.”
Zoe’s grip tightened. “What was that?”
The woman stopped, shook her head, and turned back to face Zoe with an ugly expression. “I called you a waster. Got a problem with that?”
“Jesus.” I stepped between them and glared at the woman who looked as if she wanted to slap my best friend silly. I did, too, but I wasn’t about to let anyone else go there. “She’s drunk. Don’t be stupid.”
“She just—”
“I know. Now jog on.”
She stared at me for a couple of seconds. She obviously saw the same thing most other people did in my eyes because she linked arms with her grinning boyfriend and walked away.
I turned to Zoe with a sigh. “Go home, Zoe. You’re drunk.”
Her mouth widened into a dopey smile. “I like peachy bums. What can I say?”
“No, you like bugging Darren.”
As if on cue, her on-again, off-again boyfriend roared something incomprehensible at us. He and a group of our friends had somehow managed to get roughly half a mile ahead of us while I tried to shepherd Zoe to a taxi rank. In her state, it was no easy task.
She stuck out her lower lip and glanced around. “Should I have slapped her for calling me a waster?”
“You are a waster.” Hiding my grin, I urged her toward our friends. “Taxis are this way. Move, please.”
“How do you do that, though? Get people to just… back off? The look. Teach me it.”
“I’m just charming. It’s a natural-born gift that can’t be taught. Now keep walking.”
She tottered for a few steps until a passing car beeped at her. She whooped and made a move to lift up her top and flash them.
I grabbed her hands just in time then readjusted her clothes. I knew I should have hidden those extra shots she’d ordered right at last call. “You’re a disaster. I hope you know that.”
Her pale blue eyes filled with tears. “A break, Cara. What the fuck is a break?”
“It’s drunk talk for I want a night out with the lads.”
She grinned. “I fucking love you.”
“If you loved me, you’d hurry up before I freeze to death.”
She made a face at my goose-bumped legs. “What are you waiting for? I’m starving!”
She ran surprisingly fast. I followed as quickly as possible, waiting for her to fall. She didn’t, and the others slowed enough for us to finally catch up with them on Conyngham road, away from the brittle winds blowing over the River Liffey.
I reached the group just in time for Zoe to burst into tears because Darren refused to acknowledge her. Ignoring the inevitable argument, I folded my arms in a vain attempt to keep warm. On a December night in Dublin, I should have been wearing something ugly and heavy.
“It’s the longest night of the year,” Eoin said, slowing to walk next to me, his arm bumping against mine.
I sucked in a breath. “Yeah. Coldest, too, or is that just me?”
He gave my bare legs a pointed look. “I can warm you up.”
“I’m okay. Thanks.”
He slipped an arm around my waist, the tips of his fingers finding their way under the waistband of my skirt. Shrugging him off, I stepped neatly out of his reach.
“Now what’s your problem?” he asked through clenched teeth.
I had put in a full shift at the supermarket, and then Zoe had been weepy and juvenile all evening; I was exhausted and tired of being diplomatic. “Still not interested. Learn to take no for an answer, and maybe we wouldn’t have to suffer through these awkward moments, Eoin.” I shook my head. “Go bother somebody else.”
“You weren’t saying that when we—”
“Trust me, that mistake was more than enough.” I gave him the look.
He stormed ahead, muttering something about “cold bitches.” Looking past him, I noticed some lights. They hovered over the Phoenix Park before darting about as if they lived and had purpose. I stopped and stared, a weird feeling gnawing at the pit of my stomach. Beam after beam burst through the leaves, flooding the night sky with colour.
“Come on, Cara,” Fiona said, tapping my arm as she and Erika passed.
“Think it’s a rave or something?” I asked, moving toward Zoe but still watching the sky.
Zoe stopped arguing with Darren long enough to stare at me. “What?”
“The lights.”
“What lights?” She launched straight back into her argument as if there had been no interruption.
Her obliviousness didn’t bother me. She was stuck in her own little world, a bubble that consisted mostly of her relationship with Darren.
I kept my gaze on the lights, only half-listening to Darren’s attempt to persuade Zoe to shut up long enough to grab a steaming bag of greasy, vinegar-soaked chips. I willed her to agree. Then maybe I could run across the road and take a quick look inside the park while they waited for food.
But Phoenix Park wasn’t safe at night. I took one last, longing look at the lights and followed the others.
But my skin thrummed with need, my heart raced with exhilaration. It was the first time all night my interest had been truly piqued. All I had seen was a few lights in the sky, but I had a peculiar feeling in my gut, something warning that I would always want to know, that I would miss out on something spectacular if I just walked away.
“Okay, fine,” Zoe said as we reached the chipper, the food smells growing stronger. “I’m hungry anyway.” She pushed open the door. “Come on, Cara.”
I nodded and made to follow, but I couldn’t seem to make my feet step inside the building. I lingered on the footpath. The streets were mostly empty, apart from the groups of drunks wandering around looking for food and transport.
My friends were used to me wandering off. Zoe would look for me… or not. Maybe they would wait. If not, I wasn’t worried. There were plenty of taxis. I could check out the lights for a couple of minutes. The food would probably be ready by the time I returned. The traffic lights turned red, and my heart leaped in my chest as I made my decision.
I ran across the road, weaving through cars, and then crossed another street to get to the entrance of the park. The paths leading in were lit by streetlights, and those other lights still decorated the sky.
Trembling, I took a deep breath and stepped through the gate. I heard music and felt it beating beneath my feet. Maybe a concert of some kind. I would go as far as the monument and then turn back, I promised myself, but when I reached the tall obelisk, I kept walking. I needed to see, to hear, to know. Somehow, the lights had become more important than anything else in the world. A small part of me knew that was wrong, that everything was wrong, but my feet still moved.
The lights danced in the distance, and the music called to me, daring me to come and get it. It vibrated in my veins as if it belonged to me, owned me.
I realised I had already passed Dublin Zoo but hadn’t heard any of the animals. Then again, I hadn’t heard anything other than that music since I entered the park. The air remained strangely empty of normal city sounds.
The lights sparkled, drawing me further along. I shouldn’t have walked into the park alone, but I had never had any sense. I couldn’t make myself see the danger that was so obvious to everyone else. I was the one who walked down dark alleys alone and took everyone to house parties in the worst part
s of town. I was the girl who had stared down a wild-eyed scumbag pointing a knife at me with shaky druggie hands instead of just handing over my purse. Zoe often called me crazy, but she enjoyed my unpredictability… mostly.
I looked over my shoulder, and my breath hitched in my throat. Behind me, a growing sheet of hungry darkness had swallowed up everything in its path as the streetlights blacked out one by one. The ominous gloom screamed danger, and for once, I listened.
I hurried forward to stay in the light, but the shadows crept behind me, gaining ground with each of my steps. A small spark of terror triggered deep within me, but left before I could register it properly. A wall separated my mind from my body, and I couldn’t seem to reconnect the two.
The park was well known as a breeding ground for dealers, druggies, prostitutes, and gardaí, but I hadn’t seen a soul. It was as if the rest of the world had disappeared and left me behind. Impossible, yet the fact that I couldn’t stop my own feet from moving was pretty unbelievable, too.
Lit only by the moon, the trees bordering the park leaned malignantly toward the path as if to snatch me up in their barren branches.
Unwanted images popped into my head—things that hadn’t scared me since childhood, memories I had long discarded as fantasy. I thought of dreams my mother promised me hadn’t been real, fears and monsters that might come true on a night when nothing else made sense.
I was afraid to look at the shadows in case I saw movement, afraid to stop running because the darkness would catch up with me. My pace quickened, but my mind remained separate from my body, a spectator waiting to see what kind of trouble I would find, fed up with my not heeding its warnings.
My feet moved from the path, and I kept walking until I came to a section of the park used by joggers, dog walkers, and the occasional junkie. I moved between thick trunks of ancient, unfamiliar oak trees. Their branches shielded me from the wind but whispered in ways they shouldn’t.
I wanted to go home, but I was lost. The lights finally stopped moving, and so did my feet. The lights glistened, contracted, and spun around me before shooting away to hover above a clearing amongst the trees. Dead leaves and broken twigs decorated barren earth devoid of grass.
The lights dipped and disappeared. Horrified by the idea of never knowing what they were, I ran after them.
I stopped abruptly when I came to a gaping hole in the ground. Sweat trickled down my back as shapes formed before my eyes. Steps led down into the darkness, but the lights were in there somewhere. They tugged at me, urging me to follow.
The music grew louder, echoing from underground.
I looked behind me. The trees were so closely knit that I couldn’t see where I might have walked through. There was nowhere to go. No way out. I took a deep breath and made the only choice I could see.
I stepped down.
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