“We’re getting close to your village, aren’t we?” Keith asked excitedly.
“I am not certain,” the Master said without inflection. “I have seen nothing yet which awakens memory in me.”
At last, a churchyard appeared on their right. The church, a fairly small building made of time-darkened stone, raised a square tower surmounted with a cross over the peak of the roof. The headstones, tilted this way and that in the tall grass around the building, were mostly flat and white, with sharp edges that made them look as if they had been cut out of a cake of wax. Beyond it was a residence, much newer than the church, but with the air of age. “This is it,” Diane announced. “St. Michael’s of the Downs.”
“This is where I make sure that the Butler who I think married the grandfather who came to America actually left the area,” Keith said, trying to avoid mentioning his female ancestor, but still get his meaning across. This curse was getting to be a pain.
“If I may understand your circumlocutions,” Holl said, “you wish to find that the great-grandmother was not buried here, so that you have a match against the name of the one who left for America.”
“Right,” Keith said, relieved that someone understood his problem. “If the parish clerk is in, he or she might be able to give me some help finding the name.”
“I’ll help you,” Diane said.
“I’m staying here,” Holl declared. “I don’t feel much like being exorcised today.”
“Oh,” said Keith curiously. “Well, okay. I’ll leave the key in the ignition in case you want to listen to the radio.” He and Diane disappeared through the creaking wrought iron gate.
As soon as they were out of sight, Holl threw an aversion around the body of the car to drive off the gazes of idle passersby.
“To vhat purpose do you do this?” the Master asked curiously, observing Holl’s handiwork. “You know ve haf nothing to fear from their priests.”
“I know,” Holl said, and steeled himself. “But I wanted a chance to speak with you privately. It is important that we come to an understanding. I have thought long and deeply on the subject, and I am determined to follow the old ways—where they are good ones. Though I don’t see why a bunch of simple flowers should be enough to prevent marriage among our people, I will follow the tradition set down. I am grateful that you came to help me when Keith Doyle was lost, but I feel that you have taken over the entire direction of this journey. All the decisions that have been made since you arrived have been yours. What about my task? How can I complete it if you take control?”
“I?” the Master asked, looking puzzled. “I shall do nothing to abrogate your task from you. Vunce ve are in the correct location, I intend that you shall complete your task on your own. My only concern is similar to that of Meester Doyle’s. I vish to find our old home, and ensure that our folk still live. Vhether or not you haf a use for the flowers yourself vhen you return home, you have undertaken a responsibility on behalf of the others. I expect you to fulfill it.”
Holl was mollified, but only just. He nodded.
“After all, unless you finish vhat you set out to do, you cannot reap the rewards of that action,” the Master continued. “And it has alvays been my intention that you should do so.”
Holl tried to find something to say in reply, but he found himself gaping at his teacher. So the Master was in favor of his match after all. He quickly turned away and went back to looking out of the window. Behind him, the Master chuckled softly.
A loud creak of protest from the churchyard gate heralded the return of the two Big Folk.
“Whew!” Keith said, swinging into the driver’s seat, after he had unlocked the passenger door for Diane. “There was no one in the church, so we had to go over the tombstones one by one by ourselves. That was like taking attendance in a study hall. I counted a hundred and fifty seven names.”
“Were any of them the one you were seeking?” Holl asked.
“Nope,” Keith replied happily. “In this case, no news is good news.”
“Well, it’s getting pretty late. We’d better find a place for the night,” Keith said. “I have a booklet of B&Bs and guest houses from the Ordinance Survey office. We’ll see if any of the ones nearby have room.”
They pulled over beside the nearest green and yellow telephone box, and Keith started phoning down the list in the book. The first two had no room, and the third didn’t answer. Keith grimaced apologetically to his passengers while waiting for the fourth to answer. There was a click, and a voice.
“Hello, Mrs. Keane? My name is Keith Doyle. I got your name from a tourist booklet. Do you have room for four people for about five nights? A twin room and two singles or a triple, and a single are what we need. You can? That’s terrific!” He scrawled down directions on the back of the book. “Right, see you soon.” Keith returned to the car. “Voila. It’s not far away either. We’re staying right in the middle of the clan area.”
Under Diane’s direction, Keith descended from the mountain valley and into the plain looking up into the heart of the range between the foothills. They followed the roads into a small town and out again, looking for the unmarked turnoff. Once they found it, they drove for a mile alongside a stretch of croplands interrupted only by telephone poles and odd lines of trees. They came to a gravel drive between white-painted gateposts and drove through.
The house in the center of the grounds was a large manor in the Georgian style, with pillars around the entranceway. Keith parked next to a few other cars and stood up to stretch his legs.
“This is the place,” he announced.
“Yes,” said the Elf Master, getting out of the car and looking around him with evident satisfaction. “This is the place.”
Keith eyed him. “Is there any more significance to that phrase than simply ‘we are here’?”
The Master gestured with his chin toward the horizon. “Those mountains are to the north of us, are they not?”
Keith glanced to his left and then back at the Master. “Unless the sun has started setting somewhere else, yes.”
“Then this is the correct area. The village lies to the south of the mountains you see before you, and not far away. The angle is correct.”
“Yahoo!” Keith said eagerly. “Are you sure? Right here in the middle of Doyle country? Terrific! We’ll get an early start tomorrow, and find your old home. I knew it, we’re neighbors.” Holl groaned.
Together, they climbed the broad stairs between the pillars and into the front hall. “Hello?” Keith called softly, hearing his voice echo in the high, ornate ceilings above.
Suddenly, there was the sound of activity deep inside the house. One of the heavy wooden doors burst open, and a woman bore down on them, beaming. She was a handsome woman in her middle forties, roughly cylindrical in shape, with dark hair piled high on her head and milk white skin. The woman glanced at Holl and Diane, stared curiously at the Master for a short moment, and then her dark blue eyes fixed on Keith. She shook hands with him.
“Mr. Doyle, is it? How do you do? I’m Amanda Keane. Let me show you to your rooms.”
The family occupied only the ground floor of the grand house, leaving the upper floors available for numerous guests. Keith and the others had a small wing almost to themselves. Diane was installed in a corner room at one end of a corridor. Keith and Holl were to share a twin room a couple of doors down, next to the bathroom. The Master was given the other corner room. Each was furnished with antiques and handmade rugs. Diane was breathless with admiration.
“There’s tea-making facilities in each room,” Mrs. Keane explained. “The bath is here. You should have it to yourselves, at least for tonight.” She held out the keys to Keith.
“They’re terrific, Mrs. Keane,” Keith began, reaching for them, “but I forgot to ask how muh—, how muh—”
Holl swiftly stepped in to rescue him. “He was asking what the tariff is. We forgot to inquire.”
“So that’s what the young lad here was
asking,” Mrs. Keane laughed, patting him on the back. Keith shot a pleading look at Holl, who opened the tourist booklet and showed a page to the guesthouse owner.
“By the way, I notice that here in the book you have a weekly rate, which is less than we would pay for five nights’ stay. May we pay that instead?”
“Done and done,” Mrs. Keane agreed, shaking his hand solemnly, and putting the keys into his hand. “Breakfast at eight, if you please.”
“Thank you,” Holl said. “And now, can you tell us a good place nearby where we can get a meal?”
“Well, you might try the White Wolf. Their food is good, and it’s only just up the road,” Mrs. Keane instructed him, watching as he wrote down the directions. “But there’s no sign on the road, and it doesn’t say White Wolf. It says “Gibson’s,” and only on the glass. You have to watch for it.”
Holl thanked her and accepted the keys. She bid them good night and went down the stairs. He watched her go. How good it was to be treated as an adult again! Perhaps Keith Doyle was correct, and the people around here did know the look of his folk. Then he heard her voice say to someone below stairs in a highly amused voice, “Such a serious child, you can’t think!” He smiled to himself. And then again, perhaps not.
“Well, that’s all too complicated for me,” Diane yawned. “I still have jet lag. I’m going to bed.”
The others went off in high energy to find the White Wolf and discuss their search for the village. Diane took the opportunity when the house was quiet to have a long, hot bath and wash her hair. While she was toweling her hair dry, there was a tap at one of the doors down the hall.
“Mr. Doyle?” Mrs. Keane’s voice asked.
Diane opened the door and leaned out. “They’ve gone to dinner, Mrs. Keane.”
“Ah, well, there’s a man on the telephone for him,” the landlady said.
Diane shook her head. “It’s got to be a mistake. No one knows we’re staying here yet. I haven’t even called my folks.”
“It’s likely a wrong number then,” Mrs. Keane said reasonably. “Certainly our telephone system is none of the best, but I am sure he asked for a Mr. Doyle.”
“Well, it’s not like it’s an uncommon name around here,” Diane smiled. She closed the door and went back to drying her hair.
O O O
Michaels had gotten no joy from the Genealogy Office. It seemed that O’Day had embarked on what would be a legitimate ancestor search. He must be planning to keep the Keith Doyle persona for a long time. Michaels was reassured then that O’Day and the others were unaware that they were being followed, or he would have discarded the pretended identity like a used tissue.
The Ordinance Survey Bookshop in Dublin had been much more forthcoming. The Clerk remembered the red-haired American. O’Day had purchased a list of guesthouses in the area south of Dublin, and if he was staying with his assumed identity, would be putting up in one of them. All Michaels had had to do was call down the list of numbers until he found them.
***
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The four travelers spent the next few days searching the countryside for anything which sounded a chord in the Master’s memory. Keith worked out a system of triangulation by which they circled an area, covering all the small roads within it, and they were able to reduce the area of search considerably. Still, the process was slow.
The weather contrived to cause the search to be slower still. It was nice the day after they arrived, but thereafter, a low front moved in over Ireland, dousing them in rain every day and raising the ambient humidity considerably. Keith kept the defogger running constantly to keep the windows clear, so the passengers had to shout over the noise of the fan. He knew the Master was looking for particular landmarks, some of them small. One for which he kept his eyes peeled was a rock fall. There were plenty in this part of the country, and the Master looked at them all, rejecting one after another.
“It could be ground up into pebbles by now,” Keith said. “It might not be here anymore.”
“They von’t haf moved it,” the Master assured him. “But I am not sure I remember vhy.”
Diane checked off another small section as they turned off one of the narrow roads marked on the map, and noticed an interesting entry. “Well, that’s that for this part. Say, did you know that those mountains out there are supposed to contain gold mines?”
“Yes, of course,” the Master replied absently. “It vas a valuable resource to us. Though the mines were not safe after a time, and they began to yield less. They kept out the Big Folk, but of course ve did not ask their permission.”
“Uh huh,” Keith said. “And that’s where you got your pots of gold, eh?”
“Keith Doyle!” Holl exclaimed, outraged, quickly deducing where that line of logic was leading. “In your own research, leprechauns are reputed to be hand high.”
“Depends on how high you hold your hand,” Keith replied blithely.
“Stop the car,” the Master ordered suddenly. Keith coasted to a halt, and the Master got out. Among a crowd of smaller trees down the slope from the roadside, two huge oak trees stood, seemingly sprouted from the same root. Keith followed him partway, to make sure nothing happened to him. Ignoring the rain, he watched the Master hurry toward them, almost sliding down the hillside, which was ankle-deep in last year’s leaves. The teacher examined the trees, walking around them, and reaching as high into the fork as he could. Then the little man’s shoulders slumped, all the starch gone out of them. He turned back and walked back, not looking up at the car. By the time he ascended the slope, Keith was sitting behind the wheel, waiting politely.
“Shall we go on? I think you wanted us to try this way next.”
From then on, Keith kept an eye out for twinned oak trees. As they drove higher, trees became fewer. He took the next road which sloped downward. Ahead of him, he could see the brilliant green of leaves once more. The road twisted and rose higher, but this hill was copiously forested and blocked them from seeing more than fifty yards ahead. Keith felt hope stir when he saw the Master’s face out of the corner of his eye. The little teacher wanted to smile, but he didn’t dare. Keith felt his heart start beating faster. This time, it was the real thing. They must be close.
They passed several huge trees to which had been tied red and yellow signs. Keith couldn’t read them through the rain, but they appeared to be protesting something to do with the Council.
“Take the next turning toward the hilltop,” the Master ordered. “Tvin oak trees. Ah! Those are the vuns. They vere smaller vhen I vas last here.” Holl gazed at the trees, as if being remembered by the Master somehow ennobled them above all other oaks.
Keith pointed. “Is that your rockfall?” he asked. Across the valley to their left, half a hillside had collapsed, leaving a heap of gigantic boulders. A rare angle of perspective through the rain and the clear air made the monument seem to be much smaller and immediately beside them. “So that’s why you were so sure no one would move it over the years. It’s a mountain! Here we are!”
Keith steered the car into a small turning, slick with mud, and stopped.
“Vhat’s this?” the Master demanded. Before them was no village of cottages, but a small street of newly built houses, surrounded by churned-up earth.
“This is the hilltop,” Keith said, looking around him in confusion.
“This vas not here before. Vhat is it?” the Master asked in an agitated voice.
“It’s a housing project,” Keith replied, reading a yellow sign tied to a tree at the entrance to the site. “Really recent. There’s still mud all over the streets, and no grass yet. And I guess it’s not a very popular project. Look at that.”
Holl read the notice. “It asks the local folk to rally against the council and the developers. They wish others to boycott the project, and not buy the houses or prevent others from taking residence, ‘because only Peeping Toms would live here.’” Several other signs had been tied up all over the street.
They were visible on the young trees planted in front of every house, and tied to almost every doorknob.
Behind them an engine raced, and a voice shouted at them through the rain. Keith glanced into the mirror and hastily moved the car aside. A lorry thundered past them into the development, carrying a gang of skinny trees.
“Where are your folk?” Keith asked the Master.
“Gone.” The Master climbed out of the car and walked blindly along the muddy street. Keith and the others followed him. The new houses watched them with blank glass eyes like rows of mannequins.
“Gone,” the Master said forlornly. “All has been destroyed. Are they all dead?”
“It was a nice place,” Keith offered, following the little teacher and trying to be soothing. “There’s a great view.”
The Master stopped and looked away reminiscently. “And the river vas only a hundred paces away. The vells vere sweet. The air is as I remember it. There is as yet only the faintest stink of cifilization here.”
“It looks like this place isn’t happy,” Keith said, wondering what made him think that.
The Master turned a penetrating gaze on him. “It is not. You can sense it. Imagine vhat anger we can sense. The Big Folk down there think that it is bad because these new buildings overlook them. That is incorrect. It is because a magical place that has been here from the beginning has been uprooted. They shall have no joy of it. But it is too late.” He raised his hands helplessly to encompass the muddy streets. “Too late. It is ruined. They do not know what they haf done, but the earth vill tell them.”
Keith remembered being swallowed up by the earth on the hilltop in Callanish, and stopped the small teacher with a hand on his arm. “Is there, um, something sentient underneath there? Like a monster?”
The Master smiled sadly. “Ah, no, merely the Earth. Only Nature. But ve treated it vith respect, and they have not. Vill not,” he added.
“Should we warn them?” Keith asked with concern.
“Vhat good vould it do? Can you warn the developers in your own country that what they are disturbing is vengeful?”
Mythology Abroad Page 25