‘What are you doing?’ cried Shane.

‘The Clurichaun’s last verse,’ she said, ‘How did it go again?’

‘I … I don’t remember’

‘You do, Shane, come on!’

Shane screwed up his eyes and began to chant, ‘Dangers lurk where fae-winds blow, And treachery you’ll find there when you go. But open your eyes, look through, between, Not all you see is as it seems. The trickster knows more than he shows, And all flee once the rooster crows.’

‘That’s it!’ Cat said and sent up a silent thanks for Shane’s memory.

‘What’s it? We still don’t know what any of it means,’ he said.

Cat smiled at him. ‘I do.’

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the hag stone given to her by the ghost-girl and held it up in triumph.

‘What are you going to do with that?’

‘I’m going to do exactly what the Clurichaun told us to,’ she replied. ‘I’m going to look through and between.’

Cat knew now why the stone had seemed so familiar when ghost-Caitriona had given it to her. It was just as Karol said when he told the story about the Nocnica in the playground – a stone with a hole in it would make the creatures disappear – ‘Not all you see is as it seems’. Karol said he didn’t know why it worked, but thanks to the Clurichaun, Cat did. The stone gave you a way to break through fairy illusions and see what was really there.

She held the stone up to her eye like a telescope and immediately the spell broke. Cat realised they were no longer in the dark stone corridor of the Green Rath but were instead standing in the middle of the broken-down old fort. There were no walls, no torches, only ruins.

‘This way!’ she said, leading them out onto the grass of the hill.

Shane looked around him in shock. ‘How …?’

‘No time to explain,’ Cat said as the entire fairy host appeared behind them, screaming and hollering. In the centre of them all was the Pooka, his face alight with manic joy. Summoning the last of her strength, she grabbed Mikey and sprinted down the hill into the dim pre-dawn light.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The Girl Who Sees What Others Cannot

They tore through the trees at a blistering pace, faster than Cat thought they could manage. All the time she was aware of the weight of Mikey in her arms slowing her down. Shane wasn’t getting on much better. Jenny was too small to keep up with them, so he had hoisted her onto his back. Small as she was, she was still too big to be carried for this amount of time and Cat could tell by his puffing and panting Shane was running out of steam.

The sky was growing brighter, and it wouldn’t be long until dawn finally broke. If only they could hold the fairies back until then they would be safe. But the trail was too open and it wouldn’t be long before the fairies were upon them. They had to hide.