Free The Last of the High Kings by Kate Thompson

years ago, and he may have just met one again. Fairies existed as well, and one of them was his grandfather. So why not ghosts as well? He ought tohave listened to Jenny instead of taking that juvenile, sneering tone. And he should have asked her straight out, in a perfectly natural way, whether or not the white goat was a púka. That was what a good parent would have done.
    J.J. feared that he was not a very good parent. He was afraid that Aisling was right when she charged him with being absentminded and feckless. Sometimes, with a secret pride, he blamed it on his fairy blood, but he knew that was no excuse. His mother had twice as much fairy blood as he had, and she was the most hardworking and well-organized person he knew. Perhaps it had been the visit to Tír na n’Óg that had caused it. Perhaps he had caught fecklessness from the fairies, like a disease.
    He looked around him, wishing that the cloud would hurry up and find its way back into the sky. He would, he decided, give Colman’s church a miss. Its ruined walls were tucked away in the fringes of the hazel woods that ran along the base of Eagle’s Rock, and it was in exactly that place, on the other side of the time skin in Tír na n’Óg, that he had first met the púka. Instead he would skirt the woods and cut straight across to the Carron road and walk home from there.
    But when he stood up, he realized that he had absolutely no idea how to get there. He couldn’t even remember which direction he had come from. If he went the wrong way, he could be wandering around for hours before he met a road. On the other hand, if he sat and waited for the cloud to lift, he might be here for days.
    It was then that he remembered, with a shock, that he had promised to drive Hazel to the station. He cursed the mist, himself, and his fairy grandfather, took a wild guess, and began walking rapidly across the rough ground. He passed a couple of stone piles, but nothing he recognized until after about twenty minutes he made out the squat, conical form of the beacon over to his left. What was more, the children were still there.
    Or at least he could have sworn he saw one of them standing on the top. But when he got there, the beacon was deserted and utterly, anciently silent.
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    Hazel was just dragging her case across the yard to the car when she spotted her father careering down the hillside above the house. She laughed and pointed him out to Aidan.
    â€œGoat,” said Aidan.
    â€œIt’s not a goat,” said Hazel. “It’s Daddy.”
    â€œGoat,” said Aidan. “There!”
    Sure enough, he was right. Higher on the slope, just below the level of the cloud that was obscuring the top of the mountain, a big white goat was standing with its front feet on a boulder. It was a long distance away, but Hazel had the distinct impression that it was watching every step of her father’s precipitous descent.

15
    Nancy McGrath went shopping for Mikey whenever he needed it, and her car was just pulling away as Donal and Jenny arrived.
    â€œWhatever happened to your shoes, girleen?” said Mikey.
    â€œI left them at home,” said Jenny.
    â€œShe never wears them,” said Donal, not sure whether this sounded like a defense of Jenny or a condemnation and not sure, either, which it was meant to be.
    Mikey was leaning against the dresser, waiting for the kettle to boil. “Well, you should wear them,” he said. “You’re lucky to have them.”
    Jenny traced a pattern on the oilskin tablecloth with the mouthpiece of her whistle.
    â€œMy feet can’t see where they’re going when they have shoes on them,” she said.
    â€œIs that right?” said Mikey. “All the same, you should wear them. I was never without shoes, and nor was my father; but there were people in this parish in his day that couldn’t afford to have shoes. I thought you were a little ghost from them days