Hobgoblin

by John Coyne

  Valerie was waiting for him at the locker. "Are you okay?" Her voice was very soft. Scott nodded as he spun the combination. On his first attempt the lock wouldn't work and he slammed the door and swore. She moved in immediately and took the lock away from him. "What's your combination?" she asked. "Eight-Twenty-two-Twelve." He stepped aside and let her do it. "Why aren't you in class?" "I told Miss Tinko I was having my period. She gets all hysterical, like you're going to bleed down your legs or something." Scott glanced down at his feet. He couldn't think of anything to say to that. "Where are you going?" she asked. "Home. Mr. Russell is driving me to Ballycastle. I have to leave the MGB here. They think I'm going to kill myself on the highway or something." "Ugh. Who said that? Carpenter?" Scott nodded. "What a turkey he is." Valerie jerked open the locker and stood aside, watching the hall for teachers. They would send her back to class if they caught her out in the corridor. "Give me your keys. I'll drive your car home." "You can't drive." "Yes, I can. I've been driving a tractor since I was eleven." "My MGB isn't a tractor. I'm not going to let you or anyone touch it." He dumped his books into the locker and pulled out his jacket. "Scott, if you leave the car, Borgus and Simpson will see it after school and take it." "How?" he demanded. "By hot-wiring it, Scott! Everyone knows how. It's something you learn to do on a farm." Scott shook his head. "I'll get my mom to drive me back this afternoon, after work." "Scott, I can drive the car." She followed him down the empty corridor, toward the front office. "I even have a driving permit" He kept shaking his head. Valerie stopped in the middle of the hallway and let him go. "Okay, I don't care. It's not my dumb car." She went back to her class, smiled reassuringly at Miss Tinko and looked out the window. The dark green MGB was parked off by itself, in a comer of the lot. He wanted them to do something to his car, she thought, just as he had wanted them to hurt him. He wanted a reason to get even.

  "What's butesin picrate used for?" Derek asked. He was sitting at his desk with his legs up, flipping casually through the small white prescription slips. "I don't know, but look." Barbara took the slips out of his hands and went to the flip chart, to the sheet where the girls' names and dates were written. She began to read off the names, matching each one with a doctor's prescription. "We're talking about a ten-year span and they all were given the same prescription by the same doctor. Don't you think that's too much of a coincidence?" Derek swung his legs off the desk and turned his chair around to face her. He was wearing jeans and cowboy boots, but he had taken off the boots, and now he tucked his leg up, braced it against the leather seat. "It could be nothing at all, Barbara," Derek answered. "Look, all these girls worked hard. Housework in the '30s was real manual labor. What's prescribed here could be nothing more than a muscle relaxer." "Why a New York doctor?" "I'm sure Flat Rock didn't even have a resident doctor in 1930. Besides, this man was probably Fergus's personal physician, and naturally he would have been invited up for weekends. What's his name?" "Smyth," she answered, checking one of the prescriptions. "Old Fergus might have paid Smyth to take care of all his employees. Conor would know that. You could ask him." Then he paused, frowning. "Why all this interest, Barbara? Believe me, the board doesn't care if the housemaids came down with influenza every spring." "I found a letter in one of the files. In Nuala O'Neill's file, actually. It was still in a sealed envelope, but I opened it" Derek's head jerked up. Barbara looked away guiltily. "I don't think I was violating any federal laws," she said. "The girl has been dead for forty years." "What about it?" "It was from her mother but it came too late; Nuala was already dead. The mother doesn't say much, except that Nuala had written and asked for money to return to Ireland. Something was wrong here at Ballycastle but apparently Nuala wouldn't say what it was." Barbara walked to the narrow windows that looked toward Steepletop. She could not see the grave site, but she had placed its position on the long ridge. She knew where the land flattened and where the graves were. "Maybe she was pregnant, then. These were simple Irish girls, Barbara. Catholic farm girls for the most part. Maybe she got pregnant by one of the farmhands and Fergus was kicking her off the land. He was a religious man. You've learned that about him. He built the Catholic church down in town, as well as the Knights of Columbus Hall." "What if all of them were pregnant, Derek? What if that strange, Gothic graveyard up on the hill is full of young, silent girls, barely out of their teens, who got pregnant out of wedlock. If Fergus was such a good Catholic, then why did he bury them together up on Steepletop and not in Flat Rock, in the cemetery next to his precious church?" Derek tossed the pen away and stood. "What are you driving at? What do you have in mind?" He hesitated, then realized what was troubling her. "You're not saying that Fergus got all those girls pregnant?" "Yes. It's possible. Remember those French epitaphs we found on Steepletop? I checked out the ones I couldn't translate and guess what they mean? Ma cuissette folâtre-my frolicsome thigh. Frolicsome! Mon téton d' albâtre-my alabaster breast. Ma friande douceur-my dainty sweetness. At first I thought he was just being possessive about his people, but taken together, in context, all these parts of the body have sexual connotations. These were his women, Derek. He was sleeping with all his maids." Derek sighed. "Barbara, that was half a century ago. It doesn't matter now. No one is alive. No one cares. Fergus left us thirty million dollars and this estate all for the purpose of philanthropy. I think we should concentrate on giving that money away to good causes and not get obsessive about some ancient graveyard." "I'm not obsessed," Barbara replied coolly. She was determined not to let his anger intimidate her. "I'm curious," she added, for lack of a better retort. "You have a preliminary report to present the board." "I'm nearly finished. Anita is already typing the final draft." "Fine." "Derek, this investigation isn't going to interfere with my work. I won't let it" She came closer to him, as if to make amends. "There's something else that's odd," she said softly. "When you first came to Ballycastle and saw that tiny graveyard on Steepletop, you must have been curious. Did you ask anyone about it?" Derek nodded yes. "I asked Conor, of course. I asked him a thousand and one questions about this place." "And?" Derek shook his head. "Nothing. He explained that Fergus had allowed all his Irish employees to be buried on the estate. It was a holdover from the old country. It was done in this country, for that matter, on plantations before the Civil War." "And you didn't think it was odd, all those strange headstones over the graves of young women? Didn't you wonder why there were no men?" "Barbara, I didn't even know they were all women. I never bothered to decipher the names. Unlike you, I wasn't in the market for a conspiracy." He had begun to pace. He was wearing what Barbara called his office compromise clothes-faded jeans with a blue cotton dress shirt and tie-and he tugged at the knot, unbuttoned the tight collar as he circled the room. He was overreacting, she thought, and she tried to cool things down by being calm and reasonable. "I wasn't witch-hunting either, Derek. It was Scotty who found Carmel Burke's name on Steepletop and you who suggested that we have a picnic there. But now that we know something's up, I think we have to investigate. We owe it to the Foundation." Derek stopped pacing and threw his head back, inhaling deeply. "That's just it, Barbara. The Foundation. Now, I know you've been pretty sheltered all your life, so let me explain a little about corporate chain of command. There's just one rule you have to remember. The boss doesn't want to know. If it's inconvenient or potentially embarrassing, bury it. And if the truth happens to be that the endower of the Foundation, the fount from whom all funding flows, was a sex fiend who impregnated nearly a dozen teenage cooks and maids-well, that is information that the boss particularly doesn't want to know." "But you told me yourself there have always been stories about Ballycastle-the crazy niece, for one, and the women's bodies found in the bathtub." "Those were only rumors. A few nice, creepy legends for the tourists. No one really believes them." "Well, no one will believe this, either," she said, gesturing impatiently, "so what's the harm?" But as she spoke, she knew in her heart that she did believe it. And so did Derek.

  Conor stirred up the coals of
the forge and dropped Monica Healion's old letters into the flames. The fire blazed up quickly, fed by the papers. It was best this way, he thought; get rid of all the papers, everything he had saved about the girls. He tossed in Nuala O'Neill's yellow blouse. That took longer to burn. Then her Irish passport and her working papers. The next item in the wooden locker was Peggy Connolly's olive wood rosary. Conor picked it up and laced it through his fingers. He couldn't burn the rosary, he realized. Pope Pius himself had blessed it in Rome. Instead he slipped the beads into his own pocket. Next Conor leaned over the box and picked up Carmel Burke's small bundle of belongings-the pearl-handled mirror, her letters from the old country, the love notes left by Conor in her lunch basket or hidden beneath her pillow when he left her in the early morning darkness. Their love had been a secret-or so they thought, until Himself had had a word with Conor. He tossed the papers on the forge-the mirror wouldn't burn-then stood away as his memories of Carmel burst into brighter flame. "And what will we be doing, Conor?" she had whispered. "Ah, we won't be doing anything we haven't done before, my love." He had held her hand lightly in his. There was no need to struggle with Carmel, to force her into the castle; she came freely, obediently, trying as always to please him. "We'll have the big room, luv." "But Himself." "He's away for the night. He told me not more than an hour ago. I saw the Bentley drive off myself." "I'm afraid," she had said, clinging to him. Conor had wrapped his arm about her. "Don't you worry, lass." His hand came up in the dark to fondle her and the breath went out of her in a sudden rush. "Oh, darling." Carmel pressed against him. They went along the dark hallway of the north wing, past the bedrooms, the sleeping guests, and into Fergus's bedroom. "See, luv," Conor whispered. "We have it all to ourselves." He led her to the postered bed. The full moon lit the room, coming through the tall, narrow windows in bright patches. Carmel stood as still as a nun while Conor undressed her. She was puzzled, first by his insisting that they go up to the main house, and now by the elaborate care he took with her dress and slip. He laid them aside on a wing chair as if setting a scene. He was not that way, Carmel knew. He was always in a great rush to have her clothes off, to be on with it. She reached up to unbutton his shirt and he shook his head, saying, "Wait, luv." "What is it, darling?" she asked, feeling strange dressed only in her knickers. "Hop into bed like a good girl," he instructed. He was different tonight, she realized. He was holding himself back. He wasn't his usual self. "What is it, darling?" she asked again, seeing in the pale light the sorrow in his eyes. "Quiet, my dear." He kissed her once and, pulling back the quilts, eased her small self into the bed. "Now close your eyes." "What is it? Conor?" Carmel raised her white arm from the covers and touched his worried face. "I love you, sweetheart," she said to reassure him. "And I love you, Carmel." Of all the young girls he had brought to Fergus's bedroom, he loved only her, and he could feel his own heart wrench with pain as he slowly undressed, glancing quickly around the bedroom to see where Fergus had hidden himself. "Oh, darling," she whispered. Tears blurred her eyes, and he knew she had seen Fergus move in the shadows. "Now, now, lass." He climbed into bed beside her and she did not resist. She would cooperate, he knew; they both understood and accepted their place in life, their position at Ballycastle. It wasn't their right to have anything more, born as they were to the bogs of the west country, the endless poverty of Ireland. Himself had saved their lives and now they were paying the price.

  "Conor?" The old man jumped at the sound of the boy's voice. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph. What has happened to you? Have you been playing football now?" Conor left the forge and the flaming pile of love letters. Scott was standing in the open barn doors and Conor had to squint to see him in the bright midday sun. Scott shook his head. "There was a fight at school." "Aah, a fight you say. And what happened to the other fella?" "Nothing," Scott whispered. He had wanted to brag to Conor about how he had faced them down, but it didn't seem like such a triumph anymore. "There were a bunch of them, and they knocked me down in the hall and kicked me." "A bunch of thugs?" Scott shrugged. "Football players." He did not like talking about it. No matter how many there were, Brian Bore would have left at least one of them on the floor behind him. "What are you working on?" he asked, changing the subject. "Aah, it's nothing much." He went back to his workbench and beckoned Scott over. "Would you be knowing what this is?" he asked, gesturing toward the object on the bench before him. "An old pistol." "Aah, it is that, but this is a real beauty-a Snaphaunce sporting gun from the sixteenth century. It was one of Himself's favorites. See here, this is the Snaphaunce; it fires by striking a piece of flint against steel. That was a new way of doing it in them days. See, you fire it this way." The old man pulled back the cock with his right hand, locking it into position, and aimed at the open doorway. "Now what you do is press the trigger here, and the cock will swing forward. It knocks the flint against the steel; a spark falls into the gun powder in the pan; then..." Conor pulled the tight trigger and the gun roared. Scott stumbled back, shocked by the pistol blast, and banged his head on an overhanging lamp. Laughing, Conor lowered the heavy pistol and put it back on the bench. "That's real gun power for you, lad. None of your little peashooters. It's an English weapon. Every landowner in Ireland had one in them days." "But that was almost five hundred years ago, and this one still works." "Aah, it does. There isn't a weapon in the castle that can't be used today. I've seen to that," he said proudly. "Let me fire it," Scott asked, his fear gone. "Aah, it's a dangerous thing, lad." "Come on, Conor, just once." He reached over and picked up the long-barreled pistol. It was too heavy for him to lift with one hand and he almost dropped it. "Don't touch the barrel," Conor warned. "It heats up, you know, from the shooting." "Where do you put the powder?" Scott asked, turning the ornate pistol in his hands. "Here," Conor instructed, loading it for him. Then he pointed the pistol out into the empty barnyard. "That fence post. Let's see, lad, what kind of shot you are. Let's see if you're as good as your Brian Boru." "Brian Boru never fired a weapon," Scott said, carefully taking the weapon from the old man. "Time enough you both learned. Now careful, lad, keep the gun pointed away from the buildings. Aim low now; the pistol will jump when you fire. And you best use two hands to hold it steady." "Quit fussing, Conor. You're making me nervous." "All right, lad, all right. Just look you don't shoot your mother by mistake. Or Mr. Brennan." Scott closed his left eye, then holding his breath tugged at the thick trigger with two fingers. The gun erupted, throwing his arms upward as it recoiled. Scott saw a puff of dirt a dozen feet beyond the barnyard fence. He had missed the fence post entirely. "Aah, you didn't hold it steady, lad," Conor said, taking the smoking gun from Scott. "It hurt," Scott said, rubbing his shoulders, feeling the pain in the length of his arms. "Aah, indeed." "But it didn't hurt you," Scott said, following the small man back into the barn. He looked at Conor now, watched him return to cleaning the pistol with an oily rag. "Oh, I'm familiar with it, Scotty. I've fired these old weapons enough in my days. Himself had a thing about them, you know." He glanced at the boy almost furtively, as if he had just revealed a secret. "He wanted all his guns kept in working order, with ammunition and powder and all. Come with me now, lad, and I'll show you more." "I don't know, Conor. I gotta go. I mean, my mom doesn't even know I'm home from school." Scott hung back. His mother would get upset if she saw him hanging around the old man. Conor nodded, but he looked so wounded, Scott felt as if he had hit him. "Maybe I could come by later after Mom knows I'm home." Conor just nodded. "Well, where are you going?" Scott asked, reluctant to leave. "Up to the house," Conor answered, jerking his chin in the direction of the castle. He had several days' growth of beard, white and bristly, like an old drunk's. Scott shrugged. "Well, maybe I'll go with you. I mean, my mom's probably up there anyhow." "Well, then, lad, give me a hand, would you? Take this." He handed Scott the Snaphaunce. "Have I ever told you about White Man's Island?" Scott shook his head, following Conor out of the shop and up the hill to the mansion. Conor walked slowly, placing his feet on the deep slope with p
recision. He lost his breath before he reached the grass, but he kept talking, telling his story. "Now White Man's Island isn't in your Hobgoblin, is it?" "I don't think so. I never read about it, but I don't know everything about the game." "Aah, well, and I thought you did, but you didn't know about Nuckelavee, now did you?" "What about White Man's Island?" Scott asked quickly. The thought of the evil hobgoblins sent a shiver of fear through his body. For a moment he could see the foul-smelling creatures: their pale, flat eyes, and their pig snout mouths. "Well, I've never been there myself." Conor went on, puffing between sentences, "and I don't, to tell you the God's truth, know anyone who has. But it's an island in the Irish Sea where the ancient druids lived. Now, they're in your game. You can't have a game about Ireland without druids, now can you?" "No. There's a whole chapter in the guidebook about them. They're magic-users." "Indeed, they are. Well, they lived on this island and whenever sailors approached, the island disappeared. They say a fog, a thick mist, the dragon's breath, would suddenly blow across the sea, hiding the land. Only one man has ever been there. He set sail on a tombstone from a cemetery near Dundaek Bay. But he never came back, so we don't know anything about his experiences." "Wait! Wait!" Scott began to laugh. "That doesn't make any sense. Look, you said he sailed there, but never came back. So how do you know he actually got to the island?" They had reached the house and gone in through the kitchen door. "Aah, because the stone came back. It reappeared in the cemetery." Conor led the way through the empty kitchen into the pantry. Then he stopped and opened a small door. Scott glanced around. All this was unfamiliar to him. When they moved to Ballycastle his mother had told him not to make a nuisance of himself at the castle and he hadn't. The castle was where she worked, and he had resented it too much to enjoy it. Conor continued to lead the way, up the narrow wooden back steps. "How did anyone know that was the same stone this sailor had used to get to White Man's Island?" Scott asked, persisting. "Aah, because of the writing. Words had been chiseled, you know, into the stone itself." They had reached the second floor and Conor, exhausted from the climb, pulled open the door with an effort and stepped into the dark study of Fergus O'Cuileannain. "And what did it say?" Scott asked, coming into the room after him. "What did what say, lad?" For a moment Conor was lost in concentration. He peered closely at the rows of weaponry, then looked around the study, making sure, as he did every day, that every one of his master's belongings was in its proper place. "The graveyard rock. Words were written on it, you said, Conor." Scott fidgeted impatiently, realizing the old man's mind had begun to wander. "Aah, well, no one ever knew what it said. The chisel marks were unintelligible. Druids wrote it, and theirs is a secret language." "But, Conor, this doesn't make sense!" Scott slapped his arms against his sides, laughing at the old man despite his frustration. "How could the stone come back on its own?" Conor went to the study door and unlocked it, letting the bright light from the corridor fill the room. "Come on, lad, put a leg to it," he said, and disappeared out into the hallway. Scott tagged after, towering over the leprechaun of a man. "But it's not logical," he kept insisting. "Well, you know, lad, not much in life is. And that's the real pleasure of it." He cocked his head, glancing up at the boy. "What do you mean?" "The mystery of it. That's the pleasure of life, looking for the mystery." Scott waited. He had learned the old man's ways, how he took his time telling any story. "What you see, lad, what you can feel in your hands and smell and see clear as day, well, only a fool thinks that's true. You need to look farther. You have to have, as they say in the old country, fairy vision to really know the truth. "So don't go around trusting what you see. Remember, a person-even yourself-is like the writing on those druids' graveyard rocks, a secret language." He stopped walking, stared at the tall boy, then said quietly, confidentially, "Take myself. I'll be eighty-two next March, God willing, and my life is still a mystery to myself. I've done things in my day that make not a bit of sense to me today. It's as if it had happened to another person." He shook his head. "But that's life, lad, and don't be in such a hurry to understand it all. You won't, you know. Learn to live with the mystery of it, that's all. Learn to accept the mystery of yourself. Think of yourself," he added quickly, as if seizing on a new idea, "as the land of Hobgoblin, a country of marshes and foggy mountains, of bogs and hidden valleys. You'll never know all this strange terrain, Scotty. A man is like the sailor's stone of White Man's Island-an unintelligible language, written by the druids." Conor stopped in the hallway, pointed to a suit of heavy mail. "Take this fellow. He was a Knight Templar in the twelfth century. See the flag behind him? That's called a Beauséant, half white and half black, because Knights Templar were friendly to Christ but stern and black to His enemies. This fellow fought beside King Richard at the Battle of Arsouf in the Third Crusade. He gave his life to God and his king, but what about his soul, Scotty? Would your Brian Boru claim him as a friend?" The old man shook his head. Conor crossed the hallway to another piece of heavy armor. "And this ancient knight. He was in the War of the Roses. The armor is Flemish. But the man? That's the great mystery. You never know about the man. Can you trust him in battle? Can you trust him as a friend?" Conor moved down the long hallway until he reached the top of the stairs. "We never know the hearts of men, Scotty, not even our own, and all we have left of the past is man's armor. The weapons he used to kill his neighbor. "See the sling there?" It was lying on the top shelf of a glass display case. "It's like the one you made me." "Aah, it is. This here's from the thirteenth century. They didn't put stones in them pockets, though, like you do, hunting for birds. See that bottle? It's full of quicklime. I got it down by the river. Well, you'd put a tiny clay jar of that quicklime in your sling and toss it at the enemy, and when it smashed open, there'd be a choking and blinding dust. Like poisonous gas it would be. Those that were sailors, I'm told, would use soft sap. Sling it from one battleship to the next, and the enemy would slip about on their own decks. "Come along now." The little man led him further down the long hallway, crossing to the south wing. Scott kept glancing around, looking for his mother. There was a tour forming downstairs. He could hear the voices from the entrance hallway, echoing off the marble floor and downstairs walls. "Do you know what those are, Scotty?" Conor asked, stopping at a display across one section of the walls. "Bows and arrows." "Aah, true enough, but what kind?" Scott shook his head, and Conor lifted one from the wall. "Don't" Scott whispered, grabbing the old man's arm. "We'll get in trouble." "Trouble from who?" he said angrily. "And didn't I hang these up in the first place for Himself? There isn't an axe or matchlock in this whole castle that I didn't mend or polish for him." He waved his hand through the air as if dismissing the thought of someone challenging him, and then he went on, raising his voice as if in defiance. "The Normans first used these longbows against the Irish in the twelfth century. They're made of elm, and their arrows could pierce an oak door four inches think. At the siege of Abergavenny Castle, a knight was pinned to his horse by an arrow that shot through the armor on his thigh, his leg and his saddle and buried itself in the horse's flesh." "Can it still shoot?" Scott asked, taking the longbow in his hand and fingering the unstrung linen cord. "Aah." "Then how do you string it?" "You pull the bow string up like this," he said, bending the elm and hooking it into the cow horn groove, straining with the effort. "There, good as new." Scott lifted up the heavy longbow, gripped it around the thick, four-inch middle. "What about arrows?" he asked, hefting the weapon. This was a longbow worthy of Brian Boru. "They're here as well. I keep everything handy, the way he liked," the old man said proudly. Scott looked down the hallway. Axes, swords, all manner of weapons decorated the high stone walls. He had only been in the castle a few times and never paid attention to them. "What's this?" he asked Conor, pointing to a short, wide blade. "A falchion. They used those in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. With the weight of the blade near the end they had a strong shearing power." "And this is a mace?" Scott said. He pointed to a wooden club attached to a heavy iron ball by a short, thick ch
ain. "Indeed it is. You've seen a mace before, have you?" The blacksmith's eyes lit up with his pleasure at Scott's interest in the ancient weapons. "Brian Boru carries one into battle sometimes." "And so he would. This one is from the thirteenth century. Some were just clubs with metal heads but this kind, with a ball and chain, was the great favorite of knights. It's called a morningstar. And what's this, Scotty my lad?" "A crossbow." "Ah, you're a smart one. This is Norman. Himself had a grand collection of Norman and Roman crossbows. There's another beauty in the billiard room." Conor darted a little farther down the hallway. "This here is a Norman shield." He pointed to the kite-shaped shield on the wall. "It's made of wood and wrapped with leather. There's leather straps at the back for holding it." Scott nodded and sighed. "Conor, I've got to go," he said. "My mom could be looking for me. The school may have telephoned to tell her they were sending me home." He followed the old man into the billiard room. "Aah, well." The old man placed the Snaphaunce pistol on its wooden peg. "Come now. If you have to be going, I'll show you a short cut." He cocked his head and grinned mischievously. "Huh?" Conor nodded toward the paneled wall behind him in the billiard room. Pleased with having recaptured Scott's attention, he scurried to the corner of the room and stood before a wall of books. Scott followed, lured by the promise of a secret. "What's this?" the blacksmith asked, toying with the boy. "A bookcase," Scott answered, scanning the high wall. "No, it's a secret passage." "Aah, you're a clever lad. Watch now." Conor leaned against the wood panel beside the shelf and a door-high section popped out. Conor opened it wider and, reaching inside, flipped a switch. It lit up the long, narrow passageway beyond. "They don't know about it, lad," he whispered, nodding toward the front of the castle and Derek's office. He motioned Scott to follow him inside and then pulled the bookcase back into place. "This is terrific." Scott grinned, glancing around. The passageway was low and he had to duck his head to clear the low beams. "The maids used it, you know, in their day, to get about the house. Himself had it built, but he never told a soul, and you won't find it on the blueprints of the place. Come along now." The passageway turned and twisted, hooking up with the other dark and hidden tunnels to make a maze. Scott was lost. He had no notion where he was in the big house. "Conor'!' he called, trying to slow the old man down. "Wait!" Conor turned and signaled Scott to be quiet. "They can hear you," he whispered. "Where are we? Are we lost?" He had a moment of panic, a fear that Conor would disappear and he would be trapped forever in the walls. "Aah, I could find my way through this place even if the lights were out. Many's a time I've spent the whole day in these passageways, working for Himself. Now don't you mind. Here, I'll show you where we are." He scurried into a shallow recess, beckoning Scott to follow quietly. For a moment he pressed his face against the inner wooden wall, then signaled Scott to come closer, to look for himself. "This was once Himself's bedroom," he whispered. Scott took off his glasses and, turning his face to one side, squinted into the tiny peephole. He saw his mother in Derek Brennan's office. He could hear her speak. "Please, I'm serious," she was saying. "So am I." He took hold of her shoulders and tried to pull her toward him. "Come on," he whispered, "just one kiss." "What a great big baby you are." Laughing, she pulled away and picked up her folders off the table. The room was shining with bright sunlight and it hurt his eye, made it water. Conor tugged at him to come away, but Scott shook him off, watching his mother. Now Derek was wrapping his arms around her. "Derek," she said, smiling as she warned him. "I want you." "This isn't the time or place." "I don't care." "But I do. Someone could come in here." She squirmed in his arms, pushed at his waist to get away. Derek bent his head and kissed her neck, his hands slipping down at the same time to caress her. Scott's eyes blinked and watered, but he did not move away from the peephole. His cheek was still flush against the bare wooden wall, burning with humiliation. His mother wasn't fighting anymore. She dropped the folders on the table, and quickly her arms went around Derek's body, her fingers sweeping into his hair. Lifting herself up on tiptoes, she pressed her body against Derek's. Scott stepped away from the peephole, brushed by the old man and rushed down the narrow passageway. He was crying and he grabbed his handkerchief and blew his nose, wiped the tears from his face. At the corner he stopped. Three passages intersected before him. "Fuck! Which way, Conor?" he asked, angry at his predicament. "Here, lad." The little man led the way down a length of hallway and down a flight of stairs. They emerged in a small anteroom off the main hallway. Conor slid open a section of panel, concealed by a two-way mirror, and they stepped out onto the first floor. "Now are you all right, lad?" he asked, slipping the mirror back into place. Scott nodded dully. His head hurt from the beating and ached with his crying. He turned away from Conor, embarrassed by his tears. "Another time, I'll show you the other secret doorways, Scotty. There are passages down here as well; the whole house is honeycombed." He had Scott by the elbow, walking him out the side entrance to where the lawns sloped down to the birchwood and the guest house. Scott was not listening to the old man. He was thinking of his mother upstairs with Derek Brennan. He was angry at her, at him, but the anger had no real focus. It kept swelling up inside him in waves. "Now be off with you boy." Conor smacked him lightly on the rump. "And don't tell a soul about these passageways. It's our own little secret." He winked and grinned, trying to cheer the boy up. Scott nodded and made an awkward attempt at a wave, then ran down the slope. Conor stood a moment and watched Scott disappear into the trees. He was an odd one, all right, a strange child. In the old country, back home in Clooncoorha, they'd have said he was touched by God, and he'd have led the procession on St. Patrick's Day through the cobblestone streets of the village. Conor grinned to himself. The boy was queer, all right, that anyone could see. But it wasn't God who had touched him.