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Betty was giving her the “I know you’re lying and I’m not angry I’m just disappointed” look. Deadliest weapon in her arsenal, banned by international law.
don’t think you get over that. But you don’t have to be … under it. Either.
In fact, watching the program as an adult, she found them oddly unsettling. There was a dead quality to the cheeriness of the tune and the images. A lifelessness. A chill.
Kate would walk lightly on eggshells around Etain. Betty would put on her boots, stamp around heavily, and tell her to stop being such a bitch.
“And, if we really wanted to mix things up … maybe actually show Puckeen?” For a brief second he looked like he’d been cut. Like he’d felt the bite of something incredibly sharp sliding into the soft tissue of his lower back and the pain had not yet overcome the initial shock and confusion.
“Actually,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially, “the ignorant fuckers lost the puppet back in the sixties. So they just, y’know, worked around it. I don’t even know what he was. I’ve been working on this show since the bloody fall of Rome and I don’t know what the hell Puckeen even is.”
“He wasn’t a well man. He was very large. Fried food. Nothing but fried food. And of course with the stress of this job, it put a terrible strain on him.” Ashling nodded. “Heart attack.” “No,” said Brian. “No. He shot himself.”
Haha okay wow… but that was funny in a dark kinda way
Knock, knock, let us in! Puckeen, take us for a spin! Knock, knock, open wide! Take us to the other side!
Ashling looked at the television, where a small child ran screaming through a forest followed sedately by a pike-thin, horned figure as tall as a flagpole and so black that it looked like a crack in the screen.
You never told anyone what you really saw. No matter how much you loved them. No matter how much you trusted them. Some secrets could never be shared. They were back beside the box.
“I walked in on her using the phone. Which is weird, right? Who does she call? I heard her say ‘Pat.’ And then she sees me and she hangs up and gives me
Patricia !
And then she had seen it, out of the corner of her eye. Everyone else was, of course, riveted to the emotional carnage unfolding in the center of the set. But Ashling’s eyes were locked on the lid of Puckeen’s box. Because, for the briefest second, she had thought she had seen the lid move …
Dympna is one of the Untouchables.” Ashling folded her arms. “Meaning?” “Meaning she got this job through, shall we say, family connections? I can’t fire her. I might run the show, but her father runs the whole show. Or used to, at least.”
“Oh, Brian,” Ashling called after him. “Do you want me to take care of the school tour?” Brian froze with his back to her. “What’s that?” he said, as if he hadn’t heard her. “We got a memo from upstairs. Apparently some kids are going to be coming in to see the set…” “No,” he said. “No. Leave that with me. I’ll handle that.” It was the first time she had ever heard him say those words. He had been only too happy to delegate anything and everything, major and minor, to her.
Another child sacrifice for the goat?
Vision. It was an odd word for a show about two idiots standing beside a box and talking about a fake goat who’d been AWOL since the 1960s.
lol
In her mind’s eye she watched as a tiny blond child ran for the box and climbed into it, headfirst. She remembered the look she had given her, right before she had leapt. A glance over her shoulder. A sad little smile. A glimpse of love.
Fourteen years ago she had seen Puckeen’s box open and her sister had vanished and reemerged and then vanished again, this time forever.
SCHOOL TOUR. 31 JAN. 2 (F)* HEIR FOUND. SCARNAGH RSLVD.
The realization that this was a dream and that she was aware of that fact thrilled her and terrified her in equal measure. Anything could happen.
“Go and see,” Gerry had said. “Go on and see.” There was something about his voice that had caused Ashling’s legs to seize up and lock. It was the voice that her father used when he read stories about the Big Bad Wolf. Little pig, little pig, let me come in. Something not friendly, trying to be friendly.
“Even before you went missing I knew you were gone. Because we were so close and there are some things you can’t fake. That wasn’t you, was it? That was something else.”
Well if they replaced her with some kind of changeling, why bother making the changeling get abducted later on?
She had walked across town, asleep, in her nightdress, all the way to the studio. And she had not been mugged, murdered, raped, or hit by a car.
And I’m so sorry because … I’ve been lying to you this whole time.” “Oh. God,” said Betty. “You’re straight.” Ashling burst out laughing. “No! No. Worse. I’m crazy.
LOL
He took a large gulp from his mug and she heard the tea pour out the back of his head and hit the tiles with the slap of piss on a back-alley wall.
LMAO Okay it's morbid but the way it was written made me laugh. It's like something out of a tim burton film.
Twins. Twins are always a bollocks to figure out. Should have got Jerry Fucking Springer in. I still don’t know if I chose the right one.”
“I’m just the zookeeper, love. I just feed him.” “Him?” He raised two fingers over his forehead, forming horns. He then waggled them suggestively. “I get the names. They go into the box. And ‘they’ come out. And you’d never know. They don’t last long, usually. And no one ever realizes because they only go ‘missing’ after they went missing. They only ‘die’ after they die. That’s the beauty of it.”
An altar is for sacrifice. He’s a beast of simple pleasures. Sex or violence. Your choice. So … if you’re willing to be a bold little girl, Puckeen might come out of his box and pay you a visit.
“… I can’t keep doing this. You can’t keep doing this to me. I can’t live like this anymore. We’re done. I’m sorry. We’re done. We’re finished.” Message Six had struck hard and deep.
You’re supposed to stop it … You fucking bitch, you sent it, didn’t you?!… I’m sorry … I’m so sorry … it’s not your fault … but you have to help … I need … please … Please help me … It’s here … I can hear it downstairs
That the female lead of the show?
“What do you mean, you’ll ask her?” “What do you mean, what do I mean? I’ll go and ask her if it means so much to you?” “She’s there?!” “Yeah. She deigned to come in today. Will wonders never cease?” he replied.
Must be another imposter.
The woman had been cleansed; of rage, of bitterness, of poisonous self-regard and self-loathing. She seemed like a new person.
Do you know where I was this morning?” “Where?” Ashling asked, in spite of herself. “I was at Dympna Corrigan’s house. The Gardaí were called out there. The neighbors heard screaming.” Ashling felt the sickening lurch of suddenly losing control of a situation and being very much at someone else’s mercy.
Watch Dympna Corrigan. You work with her. Watch her. And I’ll tell you everything I know at her funeral.” Ashling’s mouth felt very dry. “Dympna Corrigan isn’t dead,” she whispered. “Yes, she is. She just hasn’t stopped moving around yet. Trust me. You’ll be told she’s dead soon.
That’s the trick. It kills. It leaves a double behind. A fake. Like a cuckoo’s egg. And then the double dies or goes missing. A perfect crime.
She remembered Dympna’s scalding hate-filled rant and the lid of Puckeen’s box vibrating like a pot on the boil. She made him angry. She made him come out of his box.
“Before the funeral … you and I are going to have to meet some people.” The way he said “people” made them sound like they weren’t.
“I … I don’t know what to do … I don’t know how to control him…”
Using the Malacht on poor Dympna. Someone who was under the explicit protection of the Department.
An Púca’s ability to create changelings is of great utility. And would be better used in service of all three houses, not merely the Station.”
The body … The remains … The remains of a body lay on the basement floor.
Aw no... poor Patricia got too close to the truth
Act. Act better than you have ever acted in your life.
That’s it. Smile. Smile your way out of this deathtrap.
This, Ashling realized, was a man who enjoyed lying. He took hearty pleasure in pushing mountains of bullshit on top of you. It was a sport to him.
She opened her mouth, hoping that something would come out. Instead, something went in. Brian Desmond suddenly leaned over and kissed her, sticking his tongue deep into her mouth.
Ewwww WTH!?
You won’t leave me alone with it? But you are “it,” Brian, she thought. You and him. The zoo. The keeper. The beast.
“So I tried calling you today to see how you were and this guy answers the phone and he says he just found it on the street. He drove all the way out to Belfield to give it to me.” “You met him?” Oh no no no no. “Yeah. He was a priest actually.
Your family, for instance, has an unfortunate habit of involving itself in matters that do not concern it. I would advise you to break this cycle.”
