He’d pinned the poster upside-down so he could study it as he lay in his bed in the evenings, try and learn it off by heart, impress his dad, impress his sister when she comes home for summer. Now, on the old mine walls, the Tree Alphabet dripped down in rust-coloured lines, Hazel, Whin, Ash, Whin, Elder, C O N O R

  He gathered wood kindling, heather, a fistful of cottongrass, scrapings of turf, rotting joists, bits of old fence posts. In a roofless corner of the mine, he lit a fire with the matches he brought. A family of swifts roosting in the walls swirled through the sweet smoke before settling back in place. He ate the cooking chocolate and the dried currants his father used for baking. He closed his hoodie around him, pulled his limbs inside, fell to a dreamless sleep against the old crumbling wall.

  Sail, Willow

  On the third day, he left the mine before dawn. He continued down the river’s neck, through the backbone, following its knuckles and curves. By noon, he’d reached the foot of the mountain. He knew the river’s water had already brought an inkling of him further downstream, thousands of riverbed pebbles under Kingfisher Bridge gilding with the shifting light a further stretch south. He stayed with the river. By afternoon, he was hiding in the concrete cylinder beneath the bridge.

  Tinne, Holly (ingot)

  No, said the Sixth Years, they hadn’t been aware of him missing until they’d heard from the principal that the police had been so informed. To be honest, they’d said, they’d felt guilty that they’d not noticed his absence over the last few days, but, as he was a repeat student, he didn’t really hang around with any of the other students, and anyway, they’d been all busy preparing for the Leaving Cert. No, nobody had heard him saying anything about being worried about the upcoming exams, or about anything, really.

  The police scheduled one-to-one meetings in the quiet room. The interviews would begin with those who’d shared class modules with him.

  The school chaplain made herself available. External counsellors were readied.

  Should they write down any odd memories they had, just in case it might be some kind of lead?

  A premonition, some kind of psychic thing? A breakthrough of sorts? In the investigation? Should they keep a journal of their thoughts? Would a missing-person call-out on TikTok be a good idea? Should they print posters and put them in Doorly Park, in Half-Moon Bay? At Rosses Point, Culleenamore?

  Ur, Heather (earth)

  All afternoon, sitting in the shallow water under Kingfisher Bridge, he scrapes words into the degrading concrete, starting upside down on one side just above the watermark and, over the remaining course of the school day, arching over his head to the other:

  Eisvogel

  Martin-Pêcheur

  Tsui Niao

  Teepookana

  Raja Udang

  Boondoon

  Zimorodek

  Pica-peixe

  Biorra-an-Uisce

  Kingfisher.

  By the time his last Kingfisher is tipping the surface of the riverwater on the other side of the concrete cylinder, his fingers are cut red-raw. He dips them in the numbing water. Blood is carried downstream past willow and vine, past hazel. He looks west, where the river slinks out to the ocean, and thinks of his cold blood, already there, ahead of him. He pulls his hand from the water.

  He remembers the dog, how she had known what to do. How quiet she was, how sure-footed. How she was not afraid. How she was not afraid to be alone. To head out alone. And when she was ready, how she was not afraid to go home. He remembers hearing the plea from the mountain, and flying goat-spider up the cliff with her tied to him like a shadow, how she had let him carry her, how she had faith in him. And he remembers how she had left him, how she knew when it was time to go.

  nGéadai, Broom (killing)

  Conor’s father lies propped on his son’s bed. He’s unable to find words to fit his despair. He’s unable to cry. A worn Minecraft duvet, a blanket from early-childhood years that Conor has been unwilling or unable to give up, covers him. He’s tracing a path with his finger through the stepped terrain printed on the fabric, the layered and blocky terraces. He lands on a green-topped column next to a cuboid sheep.

  Since his son’s been missing, he’s spent all his time with the search teams, himself and Conor’s sister, scouring the lakeside, the ditches, the neighbours’ outbuildings. The rifle is still where he’s hidden it; it was the first thing he checked the morning he found Conor’s bed empty, the prized duvet bunched to resemble a sleeping figure.

  He’s trying to rest; they told him to go home and rest, they’ll keep the search going with the help of his daughter. Maybe Conor’ll come home of his own accord, they said. And if he does, what if no one’s there, what would that be saying to the young buck. He’d be likely to bolt again and no one would ever know he’d come back. Head on home, Phelan, we’ll get your boy, one way or the other.

  He’s surrounded by his son’s possessions. There’s a framed photograph hanging on the wall over his desk; a fourteen-year-old Conor and his sister, arm in arm and open-mouthed at the Captive Raptor Research Centre on the Sligo–Roscommon border, a white-tailed sea eagle swooping low over their heads. There’s a row of colour-coded folders on the desk labelled with his Leaving Cert subjects: English, Irish, Maths, French, Geography, Art, Home Economics. There’s a stack of console games on his bedside stand: Skyrim, Dragon Quest Builders, Valheim, Minecraft. He scans through the games, their rules, their objectives, trying to find some hidden signal as to what’s wrong, as to where his son might be.

  He does not imagine Conor dead, but the word MISSING fills him with dread. He thinks of the stray that had been stranded on the cliff face, how it has since disappeared apparently, the narrow ledge vacant when finally someone had agreed to undertake the shooting. Fallen maybe, the night before, maybe an attempt to get down. Injured. Broken bones. Loss of consciousness. Pulled apart by foxes or badgers. Fuck, please no.

  Lying back, he focuses on the poster above the bed, the one he gave him for his birthday last month. The Ogham Tree Alphabet. Was it too childish a gift? Had Conor felt diminished by it? Pushing him to give up the kiddy duvet and then giving him a fucking alphabet for his nineteenth birthday. What kind of an arsehole am I. He reads the poster, trying to find some embedded clue that will bring him to his son. Ailm, Beith, Coll.

  Straif, Blackthorn (sulphur)

  Were it not dark dusk, someone would see the thin hooded shadow climb out from under the bridge and struggle up the steep bank. Someone would hear him pull at the downy birch to gain steady foothold. Someone would watch him dripping riverwater as he crosses over Kingfisher Bridge, moving surefooted between the young birchlings. Someone would witness him bear north towards the mountain, straight north, heading for home.

  FOUR NIGHT SEAS

  Three am, drunk, they were driving home from the Connemara party. A sodden half-moon hung above. Passing Silver Strand, the car beams caught two small white discs shining out from the hedgerow by the strand’s car park. This made her pull in, this unexpected flash, the sudden mystery of it opening up.

  They stood on the tallest dune, to get their bearings. An animal called out from the field behind them. ‘A fox. That’s what was in the ditch back there,’ she said. ‘Beautiful animal.’ Her certainty irritated him. Certain it’s a fox, certain it should be described as beautiful, certain he should be interested in what she finds beautiful. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘could’ve been anything. Someone’s pussycat maybe.’ The animal called out again, a shriek. ‘Sounds sad, to me,’ he said. Then they saw the fox, sitting in a sweep of ox-eye daisies. It spotted them and fled, closed flower heads swaying like groupies in its wake. ‘Fuck it,’ he said.

  Seashore walks in the early afternoon had become a weekend routine for them, collecting pebbles and shells in muted pinks, ambers and teals, writing nonsense in the sand, The Bees Love U. But they’d never been to the sea at night. And they’d never been to Silver Strand, it’s always been either Salthill, or the remote coral beaches further out.

  They’d heard Silver Strand was a dogging venue (he’d needed to explain the sexual fetish to her; she’d pretended not to be shocked, he’d pretended not to feel stupid). They’d an ongoing dare with each other that they should do it; they should register on dogging websites, see what happens. Neither of them was sure whether the other was joking.

  But tonight, here, they appeared to be alone. There was no sense of an audience, or of an approaching dawn. The ocean, wide awake, reached in.

  She looked at him, the hollow V at his throat as he swallowed (doesn’t he always swallow like that when he knows she’s observing him). She wanted him to look back. He didn’t. She fastened her arms around him. The ocean mumbled over its tidal pebbles, a worn intimacy.

  He rolled his shoulders. ‘Let go. Gotta stretch.’

  ‘Apologies.’ She unlocked her hands.

  ‘How ’bout a joke?’ he said, extending his arms.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Okay. A student is putting some hypotheticals about snakes to his teacher.’

  ‘Some what?’

  ‘Some hypotheticals. So he asks the teacher, “What if the snake bites me and it dies?” The teacher says, “That means you’re poisonous.” The student says, “What if it bites itself and I die?” Teacher says, “Voodoo.” Student says, “What if it bites me but someone else dies?” Teacher says, “That’s correlation, not causation.”’

  She was tired. Maybe they should go swimming, night-swimming.

  ‘Wait,’ she said, ‘Teacher said what?’

  ‘Correlation. Doesn’t matter. Anyway, the teacher, I mean, the student says, “What if we bite each other and neither of us die?” Guess what the teacher replies.’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Guess.’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Try.’

  ‘Let’s go for a swim.’

  ‘Fuck it.’

  They stripped, left their clothes in the dunes, marched out towards the ocean. They didn’t break stride when they reached water but, as the tide rose up their limbs, they slowed. The water felt no different than the air, occasional small currents of coldness or warmth pushing and pulling around them. Chest-deep, they stopped, floated, splayed their limbs. He started to whistle. She reached over, found his hand.

  imagine in such a place closing your eyes because you want to fix it there, always there for retrieval, a story you tell yourself, a few small details amended, imagine thinking ahead like that, thinking these silvery waves could be captured solid in stone

  The fox yelped again but this time its call seemed so far away it barely existed, at least not there, not at that wide time, them floating in the night sea together. Lifting her head towards the sound to anchor herself, she saw they’d drifted far offshore. Alarmed, she tried to touch the sea floor with her feet.

  Nothing.

  And now they were both thrashing in the rip tide, trying to get a foothold. No words were exchanged, their jaws clenched shut against the churning. They knew what they were supposed to do, he’d coached her many times. Stay calm, don’t fight the current, don’t swim into the rip tide.

  He’d already turned, was heading haltingly in the other direction. She saw him striving to align with the strip of beach they’d been on. She decided to try, she’ll try to swim back, try to stay in a straight line, a parallel line, get back there, that’s all.

  Both raised their heads at every fourth stroke to check the shoreline in relation to their position, making sure they were on the correct trajectory. Both focused on their limbs slicing through the water, and on their solitary private terror that they might not make it, that what happened next was solely in their own hands. The dread of failing themselves both overwhelmed and propelled them.

  He arrived first. He watched her from the dunes, a dark speck jerking against the silver-grey surface. By the time he’d dressed, she was halfway up the beach, head down, arms x-ed across her breasts. When she reached him she said nothing, started to dress, taking time over zippers, collars, cuffs.

  ‘God, that was something!’ he said. She replied on a sharp inbreath. ‘Yep.’

  On the way back to the car, she said, ‘You okay, then?’ and they both knew her intention was to mark the chasm that had just opened up between them, to underline it, the sudden, clear realization that, caught in the rip tide, neither of them had spared one thought for the other.

  The relationship didn’t last much longer. In the years following, in their individual lives, they lied about the event, recounting it as if they swam to shore side by side, arms beating the water together like synchronized clocks until they were both safely on dry ground. Eventually, neither of them recounted the story at all.

  ***

  Three am, a half-arsed moon, they’re driving home through the drizzle, drunk. He’s found her pearlescent blue-grey nail varnish in the glove compartment, Misty Dawn! just the trick! and is blowing loudly on his badly painted fingernails. Passing the strand, the car lights catch two white discs reflecting out at them. A dog?

  Something about this hidden presence stirs him. (Recently he’s been preyed upon by an irrational certainty there’s some ghostly being tracking him.)

  Then he remembers the local dogging rumours, and their recent dare. Perfect.

  ‘Pull in,’ he says, ‘let’s go walkies.’

  ‘What’s the magic word?’

  ‘Christ, just pull in,’ he says, twisting the steering wheel and gouging the pearl varnish.

  In the dunes, they try to get their bearings. Car park empty, beach empty, no happy-slappy doggers tonight. Fuck it. Galway city still smoulders in the eastern sky. And ahead, across the bay, tiny lights on the coast of Clare.

  ‘Shshsht,’ she says, though they’d both been silent. ‘Hear that?’

  There’s an animal yelping somewhere.

  ‘A fox,’ she says, ‘a beautiful creature. Bet that’s the eyes we saw in the ditch.’

  ‘I dunno, sounds more like a dog to me. Maybe it’s some wild dogging activity.’

  ‘That’s a fox, sweetheart. Calling out to its mate.

  Shshsht.’

  ‘Shusht yerself. A dog, or doggers. Take your pick.’

  The animal calls out again, a series of shrieks.

  They sit in the dune’s marram grass. He knows she’s looking at him; he pictures himself in her eyes.

  He straightens his back, touches his mouth, waits for her to lean in. Maybe now is a good time. He’ll give her one lasting, sweet kiss, and then he’ll tell her. The age gap, look, it’s not working. She’ll be upset, humiliated, he’ll stay calm, respectful, willing to talk her through it. She’ll refuse to engage. She’ll drive back to their flat without him and, by the time he walks home, she’ll have gotten used to it, will want out, will want to be the one leaving. With a bit of luck she may even have packed her stuff by then. He’ll take over the lease. Could all be sorted by midweek. She settles her head on his shoulder, picks at a seam repair she’d made to his shirt. The sea gripes low over its own pebbles. He rolls his shoulder away.

  ‘Need to stretch.’

  ‘Sorry, stretch away.’

  He stands legs apart, extends his arms, swivels from the waist.

  ‘You’re like a helicopter about to take off,’ she says, lying down into the marram. She spreads her arms cruciform.

  ‘Hilarious. Want to hear a joke?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘About voodoo.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Okay. So, if a doll, if you look into the eyes of a voodoo doll, of your voodoo doll …’

  ‘Wait, what d’you mean “your doll”? Like, you own it but you’re trying to stick needles in someone else?’

  ‘No, sorry, my bad, the doll is you, you have it in your hands, for some reason, your own doll …’

  ‘So, you’ve yourself in your hands?’

  ‘Yeah, your own doll, and you’re looking into its eyes, and, this is more of a riddle than a joke to be fair, so, if you’re looking into its eyes, what would, wait, start again. What would happen if …’

  ‘Look, let’s go swimming, give me the punchline on the way.’

  ‘It’s not a punchline kind of thing but yeah, you do you.’

  ‘What does that even mean, you do you,’ she says, hauling herself from where she’d sprawled out prone, ‘it makes no sense.’ She undresses, snapping the air with each piece of clothing before throwing them on a pile at her feet. ‘Furthermore, FYI, neither does the phrase my bad. Both grammatically incorrect. And not in a good way.’

  She’s naked, one step ahead of him. As she walks towards the tide, he slides down the dune, back towards a clump of ox-eye daisies at the edge, and grabs a fistful. He’ll give them to her after the talk. They don’t look like much now, but they’ll be something when they open up in the morning. He balls his clothes with hers, leaves the flowers on top, stumbles after her. She’s waiting in the tide, hands on hips.

  The water feels about the same as the air. When they’re chest-deep, they float, splaying limbs. Starfish. He remembers the crucifix she made of herself on the marram. When her hand searches for his, he offers it. He hears the animal yelp again but this time it seems so far away it barely exists. Maybe it is people fucking. Class.

  close your eyes to fix it here, a story, silver-tipped waves captured solid

  The water shifts. For the first time, he notes the little licks of warning, the legion of tongues beginning to lash as one round his limbs. Spooked, he looks up. They’ve drifted far offshore. Shit, a bastard rip tide.

  And now he’s thrashing in the water, trying to pull himself back. He knows what he’s supposed to do. Stay calm, don’t fight the current. Swim parallel to shore until you’re out of the rip tide. Then arc your way back to solid ground. For fuck’s sake she’s grasping for him, hands pawing the water, pug eyes fixed on him, lips pulled back chin jutting forward like a fucking puppy dog. ‘Just swim!’ he shouts, and turns, allowing the current to pull him from her. He curves his way towards the beach. Just once he hears her calling out.