Holl turned to the Master, who was sitting complacently on Mrs. Mackenzie’s couch, drinking tea. “I’d like to thank you for coming to help me, sir,” he said politely.
Without a word, Diane got up from her armchair and went to the window to look out. With her back to them, she could pretend she wasn’t listening. Holl was grateful for her discretion. It wasn’t pleasant to be called on the carpet, and to suffer before witnesses only made the ordeal worse.
“You do understand that the process vith vhich I located Meester Doyle vas vun you yourself know?” the Master asked.
Holl studied a spot on the wall. “Yes. But I wasn’t sure I had enough energy or experience to overcome the local interference.”
“Are you certain that your concerns were not simply the product of letting your emotions run avay vith you? You spent two days running around physically, not to achieve the purpose vhich took, by my estimate, under two hours when properly performed.”
That stung. “No. I’ve thought about that. In time, I might have realized the truth of that, but by then Keith Doyle might have fallen over a cliff.” Holl tried to keep his voice from sounding defensive, but the matter did disturb him. He had foolishly run his feet off searching, when all one had to do was employ the Law of Contagion, and call like to like. He deserved to look a fool by comparison with his teacher. “It seems also that Keith Doyle did his own spell, to make light. He would probably have come out by himself in time, under his own power.”
The Master stared at him with half-lidded eyes. “It vould be the mark of an immature ego to try and achief the impossible all alone,” he said calmly, “instead of svallowing vun’s pride and admitting the situvation is too much for vun. I consider that you haf used good judgment in calling for aid.”
“Thank you, sir,” Holl said, gratified. He had thought he was behaving like a helpless babe, but he was being praised for it! The situation put him one more down to the Master, which galled him, but he was so grateful to have Keith Doyle back again in one piece that he didn’t care. “Would you like to see the photographs Keith Doyle took?” He displayed the small envelope he had picked up from the developer.
“No. It is his honor, as he took the risks to obtain them. I vill vait until he may offer,” the Master stated, and poured more tea.
Parry and riposte, Holl thought. Bested again. He studied his feet, feeling ten years old all over again.
“But thank you,” the Master said, his blue eyes glinting through his gold-rimmed spectacles.
Diane escaped from the sitting room, and went in to see Keith. She couldn’t pretend to be invisible any longer, and she wanted to make certain for herself that Keith was all right.
“Do you want visitors?” she asked, leaning halfway into the room.
“This feels like déjà vu,” Keith said. “I was just visiting Holl in the hospital about two weeks ago.”
“It was longer ago than that,” Diane corrected him. “You probably don’t realize how long you’ve been away.”
“I’ve missed you,” Keith said, looking up at her fondly. “How are you doing?”
Diane leaned over to give him a kiss. “There. Better. Other than suffering from oxygen deprivation and partial deafness from the flight, not to mention worrying half to death about you all the way here, I’m fine.”
Keith gave an apologetic and sympathetic grimace. “Well, time is having fun when you’re flying,” he quipped. “What’s it like traveling with the Master?”
“Not bad. You know he’s never been on a plane in his life, but he was so cool about the whole thing, you’d think he does it twice a day. Everybody in the village volunteered to come when they found out you were in trouble, but he said he would be the one to go. We had lots of time to talk, just sitting there,” Diane explained. “I like him. You know, he seems to think Holl has done something really great.”
“What, by attempting to find the old folks? He hasn’t found them yet. Unless you count my bodach,” Keith shuddered.
“Nope, I mean by making the attempt.”
“Whether or not he succeeds?”
“I think so,” Diane answered thoughtfully. “You know how they feel about going anywhere out of sight of the house, let alone halfway around the world. And then there’s the small matter of his having saved you.”
Keith looked amused. “That’s the way it’s been reported, huh?”
“That’s the way it is,” Diane snapped back impatiently.
He smiled ruefully. “I know. I can take the lumps, if it’ll help him look like a hero.”
Diane relented. “Whether Holl will feel the same way, I don’t know.”
“I doubt it myself.” Keith had told her what Holl had heard from the village going on between Maura and Gerol. “He doesn’t want to talk about it, but it’s been on his mind a lot. He went away to sort of achieve the adulthood quest, and someone steals his girl behind his back.”
Diane whistled through her teeth. “That’s something Holl is going to have to work out for himself. I think the Master feels sorry for him, but he’s not going to lift a finger to help him with his own daughter.”
Keith sat up to protest. “That’s not fair!—Now, wait, that’s probably the best thing. There I go, being knee-jerk protective again, and Holl’s twice my age. He’s a lot more sensible than I am.”
“Practically everybody is. What was it like, being underground?” Diane asked curiously.
He shivered, remembering the lion-headed apparition that charged him, the crowding of the damp stone walls, and the tunnel full of water where he tore his trousers. “Wet. Cramped. If Mrs. Mackenzie had been leaving a dry towel outside along with the bowl of milk every month, he’d be so grateful she’d probably be raising tropical fruit in her garden right now.”
“Holl’s got your pictures. I want to see your bogey man when you’re out of bed,” Diane said.
“Sure. Now, how did you get here? I mean, where …” The prohibition on talking about money hit him and turned the rest of his question into numb-tongued gibberish. Diane listened carefully for a moment, trying not to giggle, then held up a hand to stop him.
“I’m being mean. Holl told us what happened to you—all of it. Never mind, I get what you’re asking,” she assured him. “I think you paid for it. The Master said something about winning a lottery?”
On top of the contests they had entered in his name to send Holl with him? The IRS was going to love that. Keith groaned and threw an arm over his eyes. Idly, Diane turned over the sorry heap of clothes that Keith had been wearing in the underground tunnels. “All this stuff needs to be washed yesterday.” She picked up Keith’s wool jacket, which though filthy, was virtually unscathed by it’s ordeal. “Look at this. Is it made of iron or something? Your jeans are ruined, and this just needs cleaning. Are you really doing magic? Holl said you did a kind of spell, or something. I want to hear all about that. Is this part of it?”
“Oh!” Keith remembered. “It’s not magic, it’s Harris tweed. You know, local handcrafts. Did you get any of my postcards?”
“Yes, I did. So this is Harris tweed,” Diane said, interested. She examined the jacket speculatively, humming as she turned it over in her hands.
“Do you want this one?” Keith asked generously. “You can have it if you want. I was going to buy some fabric for your gift, maybe enough for a skirt?”
She nodded approval absently, holding the garment before her in the mirror, though careful not to let the muddy cloth touch her blouse. “I might borrow this once in a while. You were going to choose my gift?” Keith nodded earnestly. “You chose that jacket yourself, huh? No help from Holl?” Diane demanded.
“Yup.”
“Okay, I guess you have good taste. You can come with me and pay for my choice.”
“Fine,” Keith said. The curse limited him considerably in his responses. He hoped he didn’t sound too abrupt. Besides, his teeth hurt when he tried to talk.
“So what’s my limit?” Dian
e asked, careful not to mention money.
“The sky,” Keith gestured gallantly. “Anything for my rescuer.”
Diane shook a finger in his face and dropped the coat on the chair. “That’s Holl, and don’t you forget it.”
“I’m not. I never will,” Keith assured her seriously. “But right now, there’s nothing he needs that I can give him.”
“I’m going to go and see if someone can get you to the dentist,” Diane said, briskly gathering up the pile of clothes and rolling it together. “And then I am going to take a nap. I don’t think I’ve slept in two days now. And it’s all your fault.” Keith lowered his eyes meekly and tried to look abashed.
“Well now, laddie,” Mrs. Mackenzie said as she bustled into the room with a steaming tray. “Did you see your little man, then, out in the garden? After all this, I’d near forgotten why you were out there.”
“Um, not exactly,” Keith stammered. Diane grinned over the landlady’s shoulder as she settled the tray over Keith’s knees.
“Ah well, it was a braw try of yours. You’ve had an adventure, from all accounts. Have a sup of this, and then a long sleep. The best medicine in the world for wear and tear.”
“I’d better go,” Diane said. “Remember, except for now, I’m not letting you out of my sight for a minute. You can’t be trusted out by yourself. I mean it.”
“Hey,” Keith whispered as she started to slip out of the door. Diane looked back at him. He smiled up into her eyes. “Welcome to Scotland.”
Lacking other transportation, Keith had to wait until the evening coach trip into Stornoway to see the emergency dentist. His friends clustered around him, demanding to hear his adventures in full before they would let him go up to the small medical office.
“You won’t believe a word of it,” Keith warned them. “I mean, it’s full of mystical things and fairy folk. You know, what you’ve been razzing me about for three weeks!”
“Oh, get away,” Max said disbelievingly.
“We’ve been working our fingers off shifting peat, and you’ve had a soft adventure,” Martin chided him. “You must be chuffed, finding a rare artifact like that comb. The Professor was all over the place about it. Locating that must have been exciting.”
“Well …”
“Pay the bard, pay the bard,” Edwin shushed them all. “We’ll wait until you’ve seen the dentist. We’ll buy the drinks, and you can tell us all about it, eh?”
“That sounds fair,” Keith acknowledged, happy to have some windfalls descend from his mishap. The fewer times he had to mention money, the less of a fool he would look in the pub.
“I’d like to hear all about it myself,” said Holl, teasingly joining the clamor for Keith’s story. “Make it a good one, Uncle Keith. Full of ghosties and ghoulies.…”
“Later, later,” Keith promised.
Miss Anderson said nothing to him, but she was no longer looking as stormy as she had. Keith took that as a good sign. The Master had decided to stay behind in Callanish and get some sleep. The red-haired teacher hadn’t confronted him yet. Keith had some time to compose an apology and a speech of thanks before actually having to face the formidable Master. He was glad he only had to deal with Miss Anderson that night.
Mr. McGill, the emergency dentist, was amused by Keith’s predicament. In a soft Scottish burr, he told his assistant to mix up a large quantity of amalgam. “Yer fillings seem to hae evaporated. There’s not a sign that they were dug out, and the traces of tooth sealant are still there. What have ye been doing to yer teeth?”
Keith rearranged the suction hose in the corner of his mouth. “Would you believe the fairies took them?”
The dentist laughed. When the assistant returned with a small white bowl, he cleaned and refilled all of the rough holes, and smoothed them with a scraping tool. “There’s been no decay since they’ve gone; you’re lucky. I’m using porcelain amalgam here, to match with your enamel. No more temptation there for selkies, eh, son?”
“I hope not,” Keith agreed, giving him one of his best village idiot smiles, and unhooking the paper bib from around his neck. He tried his bite, grinding his molars together. It seemed to fit okay.
“Give it an hour before you eat or drink,” Mr. McGill said. “And don’t annoy the Little Folk any mair, eh?” The dentist laughed until he closed the door of the office behind Keith. Still chuckling, he stripped off his thin rubber gloves and went into his private office.
Michaels stood up from the chair in which he’d been waiting. “What do you make of it?”
The dentist was distrustful of the man in the tweed suit, even though he’d seen the important-looking identification card in his pocket, and knew he was bound by the law to help him. “I’ve never seen such a case in all my life. There was no digging, and not a fragment of metal left clinging to the enamel. It was as if they had never been put in.”
“Curious,” Michaels mused aloud.
McGill spoke up indignantly. “I demand to know if there’s a new secret weapon that caused the boy’s fillings to vanish like that. I don’t approve of nee-uclear technology.”
“That’d be classified technology, Mr. McGill,” Michaels said patiently, his voice devoid of any inflection. He had a lot to report back to the chief.
“Oh, aye, so you’d say, until we’re all dead in our beds,” the dentist raged. “Then what do you do? You blame the Americans or the French, don’t you? Good day to you, Mr. Michaels.” He stood by the door until the agent took his leave.
“It might be a taunt to us, Chief,” the agent said quietly into the telephone. “They might know we’re shadowing him. He didn’t have a thing on him except a ratty old comb. His pockets were stripped, his clothing was tattered. No microfilms, no packages.”
“Sounds like he was double crossed by his contact. Say he made a pickup of a formula, but there’s no proof. There can be no arrests without proof.”
“Unless you’d call this process for dissolving metal and leaving tissue intact behind it proof, sir,” the agent reasoned.
“That would be handy. Defense would love us for it, wouldn’t they? Upstairs doesn’t want this lad getting away, Michaels.”
“If proof is there to find, sir, I’ll find it.”
O O O
The tour bus took only a small party around the island for what Keith dubbed the Tweed Tour that Saturday. The other young men, though relieved to see Keith back and in one piece, would not be persuaded to join a sightseeing and shopping tour under any circumstances. As one, they elected to stay in town for the day. They teased Keith mercilessly over having a girlfriend who was so devoted that she would fly halfway around the world to see to his welfare.
“Throwing money around again,” Edwin chided him, but the teasing was affectionate now, “and all for your sake. As if you were worth more than ten pence. You didn’t tell us she was such a knock-out.”
“There’s some secrets I can keep,” Keith returned, waggling his eyebrows. “I didn’t want to make you poor dopes jealous.”
Mrs. Green expressed herself interested in joining the bus tour to look at scenery, but not at dry goods. She was coming along for the ride. Mrs. Turner, by contrast, was a keen craftsmaker, and was eager to see what the locals had to offer. Narit and Diane had hit it off right away, and settled down in the back of the bus to talk.
Keith loaded up his pocket with three new rolls of film, and took over the seat behind Holl and the Elf Master, camera at the ready.
Though the day was fine, the sea wind made it ‘windcheater’ weather again. Keith had on his old jacket with a sweater tucked underneath, leaving the new one behind at the laundry with his other sodden clothing.
The range of geography throughout just the few miles of land comprising the Isles amazed the tourists. Only a short distance from the rocky hills lay long valleys of marsh grasses and wildflowers, a temperate environment attached at odd angles to the tundra-like terrain of the peat bog.
“This is nothing at all
like the land we’ve been seeing,” said Mrs. Green enthusiastically. She and Keith stopped to take photographs as they rolled along the narrow roads. “How lovely it all is.”
“That bird you hear is a shore lark,” Miss Anderson said, looking pleased, when they stopped to listen in the middle of a huge, flat plain completely full of tiny daisies. “They are extremely rare. Look, there he goes! The little brown bird. See him!”
“That’s one for my bird book,” Mrs. Green said breathlessly. “A shore lark!”
“Too quick for my camera,” Keith announced regretfully. “But I did see him, anyway.”
Further south, quiet sandy streams flowed down the hills and spread out across astonishingly white sand beaches. The brilliant aquamarines and blues of the water made the inlets look like they belonged in the tropics, instead of less than a thousand miles from the Arctic Circle.
“We ought to go for a paddle,” Mrs. Green suggested. “That water looks marvelously refreshing.”
“I don’t know whether I’d advise that,” Miss Anderson clucked. “The water might be bone-numbingly cold.”
“The climate here is moderated by the current of the Gulf Stream,” the Elf Master intoned austerely. “It is far varmer here than in the similar latitude on the vestern side of the Atlahntic. Certainly vhere it is so shallow vill be varmed by the sun as vell.”
Keith snickered at the preponderance of v’s in the Elf Master’s little speech. Miss Anderson stopped and looked at the small, red-haired man, the surprised expression on her face revealing that she knew the Master was absolutely right. “Well, that’s true. If any of you would like to try, we can wait here.”
“No, thank you,” Mrs. Green bubbled, snapping a picture of the sea. “It was only an impulse. But it does look so nice.”
***
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Mythology Abroad Page 21