The Boggart and the Monster

by Susan Cooper

  Jessup backed down the stairs. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But Harold asked me to come visit. My name’s Jessup Volnik.”

  “It’s still private, whatever your name is,” said Mean Man. “Come back tomorrow. Or next week.” He pulled a wire mesh screen down over the end of the trailer, and let it drop with a crash. Then he disappeared into the depths behind it.

  But a truck came swinging into the parking lot from the road that ran along the lake: a noisy little pickup with a large plastic-swathed piece of machinery in the back. Out of the cab jumped Harold Pindle, still in the sweatshirt and jeans he had worn on the airplane. “Jessup!” he cried. “Emily! Welcome!”

  He reached out remarkably long arms, like an octopus, hugging them both as if he had known them since birth. Then he shook hands enthusiastically with Tommy and Mr. Maconochie. “You’re Mr. Mac! The lawyer who bought a castle! And Tommy the computer whiz! Come on all of you and meet Jenny, and Adelaide!”

  Jenny, climbing out of the pickup’s cab with an armful of papers, turned out to be Harold’s assistant: a small, tough-looking Chinese-American girl with a black ponytail and a cheerful, ready smile. Adelaide was the machine wrapped in plastic: a Remotely Operated Vehicle, known as an ROV. She was the size of a dining-room table, rectangular, with a bright yellow tubular frame and casing and a great many cables and dials and wires. Jenny unwrapped the plastic to show her off, and Harold patted the yellow frame affectionately.

  “This is one of the two babies who are going to help us find the Monster,” he said. “Sweet Adelaide, down she goes under the water tomorrow to join her brother — and then we’ll see!”

  “What’s the other one called?” said Emily.

  “Sydney,” said Jenny. “Harold was born in Australia.”

  “Sydney and Adelaide between them will scour the loch,” said Harold with satisfaction. “And it won’t just be side-scan sonar — we’ll have a laser line scan. There’s only about half a dozen of those in the world. Amazing business — it converts to color pictures just like your TV set. Come on in and see.”

  He leaped up the trailer steps and rattled the wire mesh screen. “Chuck!” he bellowed. “Open up!”

  Mean Man appeared out of the darkness, looked at them all in silence, and reluctantly unlocked the barrier. He instantly vanished again into the depths.

  “Chuck doesn’t like people,” said Harold cheerfully. “He prefers Sydney and Adelaide. But he’s a very good technician. Come on in.”

  They climbed the little ladder after him, with the Boggart in pursuit, and squeezed into the spaces between equipment in the trailer. Mr. Maconochie found a coil of wire jutting into his neck, and tried to make himself shorter.

  Harold tugged the wire out of Mr. Maconochie’s collar. “Not much room, I’m afraid,” he said. “This thing’s really a container. Had it shipped over just like this, full of the equipment and a lot of plastic packing. A truck brought it here, and all we had to do was open the door, pull out the packing, plug in, and set up shop.”

  Head slightly bent, Mr. Maconochie looked around in wonder at the array of dials and gauges and switches. It looked like the control room of a nuclear submarine. He said, “This must have cost a small fortune.”

  Harold Pindle chuckled. “Sure did. We have an angel. A wonderful old fellow called Axel Kalling, of Kalling Match — he has a foundation that supports unfashionable scientific enterprises. Like mine . . . Now take a look at this, Jessup —”

  He sat down at a control panel in front of what looked like a television screen and began turning dials, and a hazy image appeared at the top of the screen, obscured by a thick brown fog.

  Emily peered over his shoulder. “It looks like the bottom of a boat.”

  “That’s just what it is,” said Harold.

  Jessup said, “That’s the straight visual image, right?”

  “Right. This is from a video camera mounted on Sydney’s bow, with lights of course. Cousteau stuff, just like on the box. But in here we have the sonar — stage two.” Harold bounced up again and into the next cavelike space in the wire-draped trailer, and Jessup, Emily and Mr. Maconochie dutifully followed, ducking cautiously.

  The Boggart was bored. Screens and computer terminals had lost most of their charm for him once he had learned how to play tricks with them, and these days he seldom even bothered to send Disney cartoons invading Mr. Maconochie’s favorite BBC television dramas. He flittered out of the trailer, back into the daylight; across the asphalt of the parking lot and over the litter bin into which Tommy had scornfully dropped his Loch Ness Monster leaflets.

  Glancing down, he saw on the front of a discarded leaflet the fuzzy, fake, world-famous picture of the Monster: the plesiosaur form rearing out of the water, with its massive body long neck and tiny head. The Boggart paused, and all his yearnings of the long melancholy night came flooding back. He looked across the road to the loch, wide and silent and grey under the clouded sky, and he launched himself toward the water with all his ancient senses alert.

  “Cuz!” he cried. “Cuz, where are you? It’s me!”

  Seven hundred feet down in the frigid dark water, the echo of the Boggart’s voice crept into Nessie’s sleeping brain. He shook his head a little, preparing to go deeper down into sleep, but the voice would not go away. It rang in his brain, louder, clearer, and Nessie gave a small grumbling grunt and raised his head. A layer of mud ten years thick rose with it, and wafted out into the water, which had been unclouded since the last time Nessie had floated lazily to the surface, peered out at a startled tourist, drifted down again before any camera could click, and gone back to sleep.

  “Nessie! Where are you? It’s your cuz, it’s me!”

  Suddenly Nessie’s senses leaped into life, fighting their way to wakefulness through his long habit of sleep. He knew that voice. He had known it well, oh very well indeed, years and centuries ago. A great excitement came flooding through him. He lifted his long neck and shook his enormous body free of the mud, and with a beat of his powerful tail he was on his way up to the surface, calling as he went even though hundreds of feet of water kept his voice from being heard.

  “Cuz! It’s me, it’s Nessie! I’m coming! Wait for me!”

  * * *

  UP IN THE TRAILER, Harold had shown them his sonar screens, and now he had reached the third set of equipment, in the last little cave at the very back. Here there were banks of dials and computer keyboards, and three small screens in a row, each a blank dark green. There was so little space that Emily, Jessup and Mr. Maconochie had to take turns to peek inside, and even Harold had to stand squeezed at the back while Chuck, morose and silent in his Mean Man T-shirt, sat at the ROV remote controls that only he could fully understand.

  “This laser scan is quite amazing,” Harold said happily. “Nobody’s had it before. We can send Sydney off through that deep dark water with no lights, and no sound waves for sonar, and if he meets anything we can get a picture of it as clear as if he was shooting with a video camera in daylight. Chuck, is Jenny out there with Sydney?”

  Chuck looked at them all disapprovingly, clearly wishing they would go away. “She’s in the other boat, making it ready for Adelaide,” he said.

  “Well, tell her to move to Sydney’s boat and cast off for a little bit,” Harold said.

  Chuck breathed heavily, and murmured into the little microphone attached to his headset. Then he played with his dials, and after a while the three little screens faded to a lighter green and occasional pictures began to appear on them, dark and distinct: a mooring line, the side of a jetty, an anchor, moving upward.

  “They’re out in the loch,” Chuck said. He glowered at Harold; his expression said, You’re wasting valuable scientific time showing off to strangers. He added, “Jenny’s turning north.”

  Then he looked more closely at his dials, and from the dials to the screens and back, and his face changed. He began to blink very fast, and he said huskily, “There’s something moving out there
, underwater. Something very big.”

  * * *

  NESSIE SHOT THROUGH the darkness, flippers and tail churning, thrusting him upward; all the mud and slime fell away from him as he rushed through the water. He was calling all the while to the Boggart as he came, and above him the Boggart hovered invisible over the loch, hearing, ecstatic, waiting for him to arrive.

  “Nessie! Is it really you?”

  “I’m coming, cuz! Wait for me! I’m on my way!”

  Impatiently the Boggart waited, wondering what was taking so long; boggart-travel, for a creature of no substance or tangible form, was a matter of seconds when you put your mind to it. Well, Nessie had always been a slowpoke. Looking down, he saw below him one of the long, sturdy research boats of the Kalling-Pindle Project putting out into the loch, with Jenny at the helm. Then beyond it, to his horror, he saw fast approaching him the telltale ripple of a speeding underwater form — a very large form. Nessie was still in the shape of the Monster.

  The Boggart was appalled.

  “Nessie! What’s the matter with you? Drop your shape! You’re a boggart, man!”

  Nessie slowed down, feeling a slow shame. “I cannae do it! I’ve forgotten how!”

  “You can’t forget how!” the Boggart howled. “Go to invisible! Or something smaller!”

  Nessie’s massive form continued to rush toward him through the water, driven by the broad powerful flippers, driven by longing. He was visible on the surface now, leaving a magnificent wake, the sinuous curve of his great back gleaming above the foaming surface. From the research boat below him the Boggart heard a muffled shriek. He bellowed frantically at Nessie again.

  “Change your shape!”

  “I cannae do it! Help me!”

  The Boggart groaned, and tried to remember things he had learned so many centuries ago that they were part of the unthinking shape of his mind. In the Old Speech without words he shouted ancient instructions to Nessie: how to find the shapes that can take all shape away, how to use the imagination that can change all images, how to disappear.

  Nessie heard and desperately tried to obey, flailing closer all the time to the Boggart and to the boat. But he was still his massive self, solid and vast and amazing, and visible.

  “I cannae do it! I cannae!”

  * * *

  IN THE TRAILER they stared at the screens, as Chuck hunched over his control panel and played with the dials like a pianist caressing his piano keys. Emily could hear Jessup breathing fast at her side, and she felt Tommy tense just behind her. She thrust her hands convulsively into her pockets, and her fingers met the little fossil shell she had left there on a calmer day. It seemed to push itself into her palm, as if with a force of its own. Harold leaned forward, oblivious to everything but the screens.

  And gradually in each of the three green squares they saw an image appear and grow, an image familiar and unmistakable even though none of them had ever seen it live before. There coming toward them was the Loch Ness Monster, long neck extended, legs back, driven by its long powerful tail, swimming through the loch. Closer and closer it came, more and more vivid.

  Tommy grasped Emily’s shoulders in excitement. Jessup cheered. Harold shouted with delight, and banged on the back of a chair like a happy little boy. “Go to video!” he yelled. “Quick, quick!”

  “It’s him!” Chuck whispered hoarsely. “It’s him!”

  His fingers worked furiously on the controls, and in a close-up as clear as a television newsreel they saw the great grey-green neck rearing up over them, and above it the head, jaws open and dripping, gazing at the sky. Instinctively they flinched backward. Tommy’s fingers tightened on Emily’s shoulders; Emily’s fingers clutched her shell, turning it over and over, like a talisman.

  Then suddenly, in an instant, the Monster disappeared.

  * * *

  UNDER THE LOCH, two boggarts whirled about each other, in delight and relief.

  “Well done, Nessie! I knew you could do it!”

  “Oh cuz! I’m so glad to find you, cuz!”

  FIVE HAROLD YELPED in frustration. “It’s dived! Go back to laser scan!”

  Chuck was already punching buttons and turning dials, cursing under his breath. There was a dark patch of sweat on the back of his T-shirt. But all the screens were blank.

  Harold seized a microphone. “Jenny!” he called urgently. “Where is it? Where did it go?”

  Emily was suddenly vividly aware of Tommy’s hands clutching her shoulders. She sat very still. Tommy didn’t let go, but he slackened his grip; his fingers moved a little as if he were giving her a neckrub. Emily thought she had never felt anything more magical in her life.

  “It was Nessie,” Tommy said softly, marveling. “Nessie’s real.”

  Jenny’s voice came over the intercom, baffled, high with strain. “It was here! It was huge, right over us, dripping, I could smell it — and then it wasn’t here any more.”

  Mr. Maconochie said softly, “A very ancient and a fishlike smell.”

  Jenny had heard him. “That’s right — how did you know?” said her voice on the intercom.

  “That was another monster,” Mr. Maconochie said. “Called Caliban.”

  Jessup was making a quiet crowing sound. He looked around at Tommy. “Well?” he said. “Well?”

  “All right,” Tommy said. “You told me so.”

  Harold and Chuck were on their feet, heading for the next cave of equipment. Buzzers were sounding, lights were flashing; the trailer was suddenly too full of people. “Folks,” Harold said, “I’m sorry, but —”

  “We’re gone,” Jessup said. “Till tomorrow.” They ducked out of the way, hastily. Jessup thumped Harold on the back as he left, and Harold flashed them the grin of a happy, fulfilled, joyous man.

  * * *

  THE BOGGART SAID SEVERELY, in the formless, telepathic Old Speech, “This is not proper behavior, for a boggart. We are shape-shifters, not monsters or trolls.”

  “Don’t be cross with me, cuz. It’s been so long, and I never was good at shifting anyway.” Nessie looked down in delight at the small waves along the shore, as they flittered together over the loch. “Oh it’s so good to be with you — and up in the air!” He turned a happy aerial somersault.

  The Boggart twirled after him. “It is so! And now you can stay as you should be, and we’ll have a grand time all up and down the lochs. Just like the old days.”

  Nessie said doubtfully, “We can try. But I’ve lived in the one shape for so long now — sooner or later I’ll slip back into it, you know. I surely will when I fall asleep.”

  “Think yourself out of it. I’ll help you.”

  “It’s hard,” Nessie said plaintively. He sneezed, as a seagull flew through him. “It’s very hard.”

  * * *

  AFTER SUPPER THAT NIGHT, Mr. Maconochie and the children sat at the edge of the campground, overlooking the loch. The sky was clouded now, the air chill, and they were huddled into sweaters and parkas. The water lay lead-colored, still and sinister, rippled only by the wake of an occasional small boat.

  Emily said, bemused, “We’ve seen the Loch Ness Monster.”

  Jessup was staring at the loch through binoculars. “We sure have!” he said happily.

  “Maybe it’ll be on TV tonight,” Tommy said. “We should have tried the car radio.”

  “That depends how many other people saw it,” Mr. Maconochie said. His voice was quiet and neutral, but something in it turned their heads to look at him.

  Jessup said, “What d’you mean, Mr. Mac?”

  “We saw an image of the Loch Ness Monster,” Mr. Maconochie said. “On a screen. We did not see the creature live, in the flesh.”

  “Jenny did,” Emily said. “And smelled him too.”

  “And then it disappeared,” Mr. Maconochie said.

  “Well, yes — but we saw him.”

  “Your friend Professor Pindle said it dived. Did you see it dive?”

  “No,” Tommy said thoug
htfully. “It just vanished off the screen.”

  Jessup put down his glasses and looked searchingly at Mr. Maconochie. “What are you suggesting, Mr. Mac?”

  Mr. Maconochie rubbed his neck, looking perplexed. “I don’t really know. It just seems to me that the only way a real solid creature disappears is by going somewhere else. But an image on a screen can disappear instantly by being switched off.”

  “He wasn’t an image!” Emily said plaintively. “He wasn’t switched off!”

  “D’you think this has anything to do with the Boggart?” Tommy said.

  “Of course not,” Jessup said firmly. “A plesiosaur may be amazing but it’s not magic.”

  Emily said, more loudly, “You’re wrong, Mr. Mac! Jenny saw him!”

  Tommy patted her hand. “Maybe we should talk to Jenny. What do you think, Jessup?”

  “I think we should go make some hot chocolate,” Jessup said.

  * * *

  THE BOGGART WAS not in good enough spirits to steal anyone’s hot chocolate beside the little campfire that night. He sat morosely on top of the Range Rover, brooding. He had already lost Nessie again, for the time being. For a while it had been wonderful; they had thought of nothing but the delight of finding each other again. They had flittered and laughed and talked and sung, and each of them had been happier than they ever remembered.

  Then they had dived down together into the cold deep water that had been Nessie’s home for so long, and in the flicker of an eye the Boggart had taken the shape of a seal, as he so often did when he found himself swimming. But Nessie remained his insubstantial boggart-self, with the weeds and water slipping through him.

  “Come on, Nessie — be a selkie, the way we always did!” The Boggart rolled and turned and somersaulted in the water, playful, beckoning. Nessie moaned softly, and hovered motionless, a faint flickering presence, iridescent, glowing. A passing salmon, sensing him, moved politely out of the way.

  “Nessie! Come on!”

  “I told you, I cannae do the changing any more! I’m weary!”

  And in an instant Nessie dropped into sudden sleep, as boggarts often will — and changed at once into his immense Monster-shape. The Boggart watched in despair as the huge body drifted down, down to the icy depths of the loch, there to lie sleeping deep and long on his mattress of mud.