The Boggart Fights Back

by Susan Cooper

  The Boggart and Nessie backed away, still invisibly hovering, and they saw that the worst horror of the Nuckelavee was that it had no skin. The double body of the man-horse was all raw flesh, red and naked, streaked with yellow veins through which the blood ran black, and between and across the veins were muscles like thick white ropes, twisting and swelling as the creature moved.

  The Nuckelavee looked at the Caointeach and it reared up, snarling. From the great horse-mouth its foul breath poured out in a grey cloud, past rows of jagged yellow teeth. Its voice came out of its man-head and was loud, grating, slow.

  “What do you want?” it said.

  The Boggart called down, “Your presence, is all! We are honored!”

  The Nuckelavee stared at the air with its three eyes, puzzled.

  “What do you want?” it roared.

  The Boggart wondered if it needed to see him, but he couldn’t think of a suitable shape to take. Still formless, he flittered down closer to the Nuckelavee—though not too close.

  “We want you to show yourself to someone,” he said. “To frighten him. Please.”

  The Nuckelavee was not accustomed to disembodied voices, and the ears of its upper head did not hear very well, perhaps because of the constant sliding from one shoulder to the other. It gave another terrifying, uncomprehending roar.

  “I have an idea,” Nessie said. “Let me try!” And in an instant he was no longer an invisible formless boggart, but down in the waves in his Loch Ness Monster form. His massive body was half-submerged in the deeper water beyond the Nuckelavee, and his long neck towered over its two heads.

  “Old Thing!” he called. “Come swim with me!”

  The Nuckelavee’s upper head looked surprised, through all its ugly network of veins and muscles. It stared at Nessie, and stopped swinging to and fro for a moment.

  “Come on!” Nessie called. He bent his neck, dived down and came up again, dripping. “It’s fun! I’ll race you!”

  “Nobody has fun with the Nuckelavee!” said the rusty voice flatly.

  “Well, not humans, I’m sure,” Nessie said.

  “I kill them!” bellowed the Nuckelavee. “And I kill their cows and their horses and their dogs! I hate them all!”

  “But come swim with an Old Thing!” Nessie called cheerfully. “With the Monster from Loch Ness, who has never seen another monster before!”

  He did his dive again, and shook spray from his doglike head over the Nuckelavee as he came up.

  The Nuckelavee took a few paces into deeper water on its strange finned legs. The only voices it remembered were howls of terror, or screams for mercy; it didn’t know how to cope with Nessie.

  From the air, the Boggart watched, fascinated.

  Nessie plunged his long neck into the water and swam round in an enormous circle. Only the top of his head was visible, and then the hump of his great body, and behind it the flailing of his powerful tail. When he came back to the Nuckelavee, he raised his head long enough to give an exuberant hoot, like a long-ago railroad train, and then he set off again.

  And after a moment, the Nuckelavee ducked into the water and followed him. It plunged both its heads into the loch, and it swam completely submerged, never coming up for air; only the swirling of the water showed where it was going. But whenever Nessie paused to surface, the Nuckelavee paused too, and though it never uttered any sound like Nessie’s amiable chortle, it seemed to have decided to trust him.

  After a third circle, Nessie changed direction and headed for the opening where the loch joined Loch Linnhe, and Castle Keep, and the Trout Queen. The swirl of water that was the Nuckelavee followed him, and the Boggart, watching, grinned in admiration.

  “Come on, cuz!” Nessie called. “We’re on our way!”

  * * *

  The Caointeach had been watching too. It was a very long time since she had last felt called to fulfill her other traditional task, the warning of certain clans when disaster was approaching them, but the call was loud in her ears now. The Macdonald clan was one of those she had always guarded, and her instinct told her that at this moment there was a Macdonald on a boat in Loch Linnhe. If this boat might also hold the boggarts’ enemy, against whom they were taking the Nuckelavee, her Macdonald would be in danger, and must be warned of that.

  So she closed her eyes and said some words again, and took herself to the Trout Queen.

  William Trout’s large boat lay peacefully at anchor in the silent loch, with its owner deep asleep inside it. The only person aboard who was awake, so early in the morning, was David Macdonald, who was in the galley making himself a cup of tea. He treasured the hours of the day when his employer’s confident voice was not in his ears. Standing there waiting for the kettle to boil, he thought again of the thing that would not now go out of his mind: his contest in verse with someone who must surely have belonged not to the human race, but to characters from the old stories, the Blue Men of the Minch. The Blue Men of the Minch, who did not exist.

  David Macdonald sighed. The kettle began to whistle, and he grabbed it hastily from the stove and poured water into the teapot.

  But the whistling seemed to go on. He raised his head, puzzled. It was coming from outside, and it was not a whistle but a kind of wail: long, insistent, repeated. It was eerie. He found the hair prickling on the back of his neck, as it had when he was hearing the disembodied voice over the water of the Minch. His grandmother’s storytelling crept into his mind, and he knew again that in this modern world there were ancient things that he did not understand, but should respect.

  His grandmother, however, had never told him about the Caointeach.

  He went from the galley, through the cockpit and up onto the deck. The wailing was much louder here; it seemed to be coming from the bow, though there was nobody to be seen there. As he crossed the deck, the wails grew shorter and swifter and louder still, rising to a scream, and he felt a wave of panic, not just at the screeching that was hurting his ears but at the fact that it would certainly wake up William Trout.

  Then a last high scream broke off, and there was silence.

  The Caointeach, who had been sitting invisible on the high point of the bow, wailing out her warning, saw that her Macdonald had heard it. That meant that he had been given the message that peril might be about to strike, and she knew she had done her duty. So she disappeared, and went back to the place from which she had come.

  And an angry shout came from the cabin where William Trout had been asleep, and David Macdonald knew that whatever the screams might mean, he had certainly lost his peaceful moments alone with a cup of tea.

  * * *

  Freddy Winter, asleep in a small cabin deeper in the hull of the Trout Queen, was jolted awake not by the wailing of the Caointeach but by the ringing of his cell phone. He had set it to the loud, piercing ring of an old-fashioned telephone, which was useful in breaking through the noise of everyday seaboard life but earsplitting for a sleeping man in a silent room. Freddy’s arm flailed about, trying to turn it off.

  “Wha?” he said at last into the phone.

  The voice was so excited that at first he had no idea what it was saying. It was a Scottish voice, belonging to one of the most recent watchers Freddy had hired in William Trout’s urgent, determined search for sightings of the transplanted Loch Ness Monster.

  “I’ve seen it!” cried the voice. “I’ve seen the Monster! I’ve seen the Monster, clear as can be!”

  “Calm down,” Freddy said. “That’s great, but calm down. Tell me where you are.”

  “I’ve seen two monsters!” the voice shouted.

  “Two?” said Freddy.

  “Two! Well, the other one wasnae clear, it was under the water, but it was there, you could tell! Maybe the monster has a mate!”

  Freddy paid no attention to the second half of this report, which struck him as hysterical guesswork. He said patiently, “Where are you?”

  “I’m in Ledaig,” said the voice. “It was heading north, toward
you.”

  “Did you get a picture?”

  “I tried, but it must have been moving too fast.”

  “Okay. Thanks a lot. Keep watching.”

  Freddy put down his phone, rolled out of bed and began pulling on his clothes.

  Even without a photograph, William Trout had to be told as soon as possible that his Loch Ness Monster was still there.

  * * *

  Nessie was enjoying himself. He had always liked swimming in Monster shape, dropping his head and his long neck into the water and shooting along, mostly submerged, with side-to-side strokes of his great tail. He headed up through Loch Linnhe, glancing behind now and again to make sure that the Nuckelavee was still following, trying not to go too fast for it to keep up. The creature seemed to have trouble with the Old Speech, but Nessie thought he was picking up a vague sense of pleasure from its swirling progress. Communicating with the Boggart was much easier, though he was not quite sure whether his cousin was in the air or the water.

  “Where shall we go, cuz?” he called.

  “To the man’s nasty boat!” the Boggart called back.

  “This will scare him! Just one look at the Nuckelavee and he’ll go away!”

  “He will—and we need to have our people here, to show them. I’ll fetch them. Take a wide way, don’t get there till we come!”

  Nessie swooped happily down through the water and up again. “I’ll do that!” He turned his head and tried once more to call to the monstrous swift-whirling presence behind him.

  “How do you like our sea loch, my mannie?”

  The Nuckelavee let out a gurgling underwater roar, and there was no knowing what it said, but it was still following him. Nessie swam on, heading for Shuna, a peaceful green island in the loch just north of Castle Keep and the Trout Queen.

  And the Boggart, at high speed, headed for his people, to deliver the news.

  SEVENTEEN

  Granda was in the kitchen with Tom, cooking bacon again, this time for their breakfast. Portia had just arrived, though she didn’t normally work on a Saturday.

  “Your life seems to be a little complicated at the moment,” she said. “I thought you might want to be free of the store.”

  “You are a good person, Portia,” Angus Cameron said. He dropped slices of bread into the toaster and started fishing bacon out of the skillet.

  “Breakfast, Portia?” said Tom, stealing a piece.

  “I’ve had some. Thank you.”

  “Let’s call up the stairs to my sleepy children.”

  But before they could take a step, Allie and Jay came clattering down toward them, wide awake and fully dressed. The Boggart was flittering over their heads. In a breakneck journey from the loch, he had hurtled through their open bedroom window and begun babbling to them, as fast as he could in his stumbling Scottish English.

  “Granda, we have to go out in the boat!” Allie said urgently.

  “The Boggart says they’ve got the scary Nuckelavee in the loch, to send away Mr. Trout!” said Jay. “Nessie’s out there with him, showing it where to go!”

  Portia, Tom and Angus stared at them.

  “First I’ve heard of this,” Granda said. He looked round the room, ending at his own window, which was also open. “Boggart?” he said reproachfully.

  The Boggart made a faint buzzing sound, embarrassed. When he arrived he had been heading for Angus and Tom in the kitchen, but had changed course to the twins’ window when he saw Portia arrive downstairs.

  Portia said, matter-of-fact, “It’s because I’m here. I’m English, I’m not connected. They have their rules—my old Welsh grannie used to say that the pwca wouldn’t deliver really important news in front of anyone who didn’t have Welsh blood.”

  She looked up at the ceiling. “Use the Gaelic, Boggart,” she said. “I shan’t understand a word.”

  Then they saw her pause, startled, and touch her face. A small invisible hand had brushed her cheek, and the Boggart’s husky voice spoke to Granda and Tom hastily in Gaelic. It was only a few minutes before the four Camerons were headed out of the kitchen door, each clutching a piece of toast, headed for Granda’s dinghy, with the Boggart flittering above their heads.

  Portia watched them go. She touched her cheek again, and smiled.

  * * *

  Hugely excited, still in his pajamas on the deck of the yacht, William Trout said, “He saw the Monster? Where?”

  “Down the coast, coming up toward us,” Freddy said.

  “Did he get a picture?”

  “Moving too fast, he said. If it keeps on going, it should be somewhere near us in, oh, maybe fifteen minutes.”

  Trout instantly forgot his rage at the mysterious wails and screams that had brought him up on deck into the chilly morning air. “Somebody get my clothes!” he commanded. “And Macdonald, where are your binoculars?”

  The captain turned reluctantly toward the cockpit of the Trout Queen, as the Trout voice rose, following him. “And pull up the anchor, start the engine, so we’re ready to move! Or wait a minute, no, get Freddy’s dinghy in the water, we may need to follow the thing fast!”

  David Macdonald reached for a pair of binoculars and held them out. “The inflatable isnae such a great idea,” he said.

  “Oh yes it is,” said William Trout. “Much faster than ours. And I’ll take a real camera this time. Where are my pants?” He grabbed the binoculars and began peering at the coast.

  “I have a good camera,” Freddy said. “I’ll go get it.”

  A crewman came scurrying with an armful of clothes. “Here, Mr. Trout!”

  Trout thrust the binoculars at him and began hastily peeling off his pajamas; they were the trademark Trout black, with WT emblazoned in yellow on the pocket. The crewman politely turned his back until he was fully dressed.

  William Trout snorted derisively, grabbing the binoculars back from him. He looked south toward Castle Keep, and suddenly he yelled, pointing.

  “There’s the Camerons’ boat! Going after the Monster! They must have seen it too—why else would they be out so early in the morning? Crafty so-and-sos! Macdonald! Freddy! Where’s that camera? Where’s the boat?”

  Macdonald said a few quick words to two other crewmen, and they disappeared. Freddy came back and handed a camera to Mr. Trout. “There’s a lot on there, and it’s not backed up,” he said. “Take care of it.”

  “You’re coming too, you’re taking me,” Trout said. “Right now! We’re following them!”

  Freddy said in dismay, “We are?”

  “For the Lord’s sake, Mr. Trout,” said David Macdonald, “ye’re obsessed! This is foolishness! You want to risk lives for a publicity stunt?”

  William Trout said, “We’re going!”

  Macdonald said, “If there really is some creature out there, and it’s large, it’s a danger to a small boat.”

  “Are you crazy?” said Trout. “A mega tourist attraction, that’s what this is—if it’s a danger, how come it’s never hurt anybody in all these years? Anyway, I’m a great swimmer. A picture, that’s what I want, and that’s what we’re going to get right now!”

  David Macdonald looked at the naked alarm on Freddy’s face. He thought again about the rhyming Blue Man of the Minch, and about his grandmother, and he knew what he should do, as a Scot and as a Macdonald. He turned toward the stern, where the dinghy was being lowered into the water.

  “Freddy doesn’t know these waters like I do,” he said. “I’m taking you.”

  * * *

  “Where are you, cuz?” said the Boggart. “Where are you?”

  Granda had brought the boat out into the loch off the outer edge of Castle Keep’s little island and was cruising slowly, waiting for instructions.

  “North of you,” Nessie said, from under the water. “Outside Shuna Island. I’ll come down toward you. You’ll see me—and after that I’ll change. Don’t worry, I’ll not let the invader see me, oh no!”

  “Is our friend happy with you?”<
br />
  “He likes to swim—he’s under the water all the time. But I’ve told him to come up when we reach the big boat. Just come up and show himself. Huge and horrible—this time the man’ll be scared out of his wits!”

  “We’re on our way!” the Boggart said. He flittered down through the cool morning air to hover near Granda’s ear, and reported this conversation to him.

  “So if we head for the big boat too,” he said, “we’ll see what happens when the Nuckelavee shows itself to the invading man!”

  Granda pushed up the power and sent their boat along the coast of the loch, past the distant Trout Queen. “Is Nessie still in his monster shape?” he called, over the engine noise.

  “I hope not,” said Tom Cameron.

  “Oh he mustn’t be—that’s just what Trout would love, if he saw him,” Allie said, worried. “He’d want to stay, not leave.”

  Jay said: “She’s right, he wouldn’t care about anything else. Look, I’ve got the Loch Ness Monster! Pay fifty pounds and I’ll show him to you!”

  “No, no,” the Boggart said. “Once they get near the big boat, Nessie will change shape. It’s the Nuckelavee that the Trout man will see—and he’ll nae want to see anything on our loch again, ever.”

  So Granda steered fast across the wide stretch of grey water toward Shuna Island. And they were all so intent on looking for signs of Nessie and his swirling companion that not one of them glanced back toward the Trout Queen, to see that a small boat was speeding after them.

  It was Freddy Winter’s inflatable dinghy, with David Macdonald at the tiller and William Trout in front of him. The boat bounced and bumped over the waves as they chased Granda’s much slower dinghy, and big William Trout clutched a rope with one hand and Freddy’s camera with the other. The binoculars swung to and fro around his neck.