Ronan Boyle and the Swamp of Certain Death

by Thomas Lennon

  Gary leaped off the wall, humming the Proclaimers’ song “500 Miles.”

  I was concerned that we were about to visit a town that was “too scary for the Gary,” as Gary is legitimately one of the most dangerous delinquents you will ever meet.

  We pressed ourselves flat against the stones and inched our way down the inner lip of the wall. Log and Rí took the lead. The steps are built for leprechaun feet, covered in crushed-up seashells for traction.

  We finally landed at street level and it was pure chaos. North Ifreann makes Nogbottom look like Bad Aonbheannach. Little jaunting cars zipping in every direction, pulled by pigs and wild-eyed goats. Pawn shops, pickle parlors, a store that boasted WE COPY ANY SHOE PRINT!

  Another sign read: CASH FOR TIN WHISTLES, NO QUESTIONS ASKED! Wee barkers were stationed outside of the dozen or so shoe stores, with stacks of lavish gold and silver shoes, heels, and buckles filling every square centimeter. The barkers sing “GET DEM CLOGS-GET DEM CLOGS-GET DEM CLOGS!” to lure in the wee folk, and this refrain becomes the soundtrack of the city.

  Pickle parlors (like the very illegal Bob and Thing’s in Nogbottom) are NOT illegal in North Ifreann. North Ifreann has pickle parlors on every corner with wee folk passing out coupons. In North Ifreann you can even get hot pickles delivered by haretroll right to your front door. This seems insane—but it’s par for the course in this pit of a town.

  Here’s a sample of awful things that are entirely legal in North Ifreann:

  Recreational pickletooting

  The sale of and consumption of real unicorn meat and dowsers

  Bender wager dens (Leprechauns love to eat hot pickles and toot themselves into the ceiling with gas from their bottoms. In North Ifreann there are venues where you can BET on how high a leprechaun will toot into the air. This is unethical and endangers and demeans leprechauns who are already addicted to chasin’ the fits. Gambling on tootin’ is ALSO as addictive as the pickles, so it’s a terrible cycle.)

  Nonfatal stabbing (Yes, if you stab someone in North Ifreann and they survive, they have no legal recourse against you. This is why the town is sometimes referred to as Stabtown, Wee Pokepit, or the Devil’s Pincushion.)

  Shousting, which consists of leprechauns jousting in the air on flying harpies, sometimes to the death. Harpies in the shousts are sometimes fed sticky okra vindaloo to make them extra aggressive.

  Lightlifting, which is the theft of “light” items. Items under three human ounces that are easily pickpocketed are fair game in the Devil’s Pincushion. There is no law against stealing them; in fact, it’s vaguely encouraged.

  Filtherlicklims. All leprechauns like naughty poems, sure. But there’s a subgenre in North Ifreann that is short for VERY FILTHY LIMERICKS. The contents of these will make a human gag or throw up instantly upon hearing them. Here’s an example of one. Do not read this unless you are somehow trying to throw up (which is something those of us with food allergies sometimes must do).

  There once was a lad from Nogbottom,

  whose toots were so pungent and rotten,

  they’d burn off your face,

  set fire to the place—

  blew his butt half a league from his coffin.

  Terrible. Just terrible stuff. I hope that if you threw up it was intentional.

  Within the first few seconds in North Ifreann, the fourth-ugliest leprechaun I had ever seen bit me on the knee guard and made off with my shenanogram. (This was infuriating, as detectives of the Special Unit have to pay for replacement gear, and a new shenanogram is seventy-five euros in the S&W department.) I vowed to keep a hand on my shillelagh, and the other in a steady rotation, checking all of the items on my belt.

  A block later, a wee woman with ears the size of personal pizzas tried to steal my boots. The actual boots off of my feet! She wasn’t even clever about it, she just grabbed at the laces and started tugging.

  “Gimme dem heels, beefie!” she howled, reeking of hot pickle and chomping a set of wooden dentures at me. I gave her a whack with my shillelagh, because sometimes violence is the answer.

  The wee folk of North Ifreann are hard on the eyes. Living under a cloud of peat smoke and pickletoot fumes means Ifreannians have become distressing to look at. But North Ifreannians are also ugly on the inside, where it matters. A minute later, the wee woman was back with an accomplice and they stole the flashers off of my socks and one of my cufflinks.

  “Come back, you devils!” I hollered after them, accidentally leaving my mouth open for a bucket of muck that was dumped on me from above. (The old stone apartments in town have no indoor plumbing, so the families in them use a muckbucket both as a toilet and for any food scraps.)

  “Thanks very muck, beefie!” shouted a tiny voice, making a joke that was un-hilarious from my point of view. Lots of other little voices joined in with laughter and filthy gestures.

  Log pulled her shillelagh, flexing her muscles and shouting:

  “[SOMETHING IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE WEE FOLK]!” She cracked her staff on the top of the meat cart, creating a huge bang.

  You could hear a pin drop. The wee folk were not expecting a six-foot-tall beefie to shout at them in their native language.

  Every little head turned.

  “[MORE IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE WEE FOLK],” said Log with a disgusting leprechaun gesture.

  The wee folk parted, giving us a wide berth. Log pulled me along and I in turn pulled Figs and Dooley. Lily and Rí held up the rear. A few leprechauns made nasty gestures at us, such as “fall down a well” and “sit on a hedgehog,” but at least nobody lightlifted us for the time being.

  I saw Figs’s eyes wandering toward the many pickle parlors that lined the alleyway. Some had jars of gigantic pickles in tanks filled with rocket fuel and habanero peppers. Figs licked his lips. I was deeply worried about having brought a pickle addict into the eye of the hurricane. I kept a firm hand on his shoulder, as he was back to being a little naked man.

  “Now, we’ve got to find the kind of venue where an evil sacrifice of this sort might be happening,” I said to Log.

  “I know some locals who would know, but they might not be very nice to you or the hounds,” said Log. “These are orthodox wee folk. Major mischief makers, hard drinkers, thieves.”

  “Classic leprechaun types,” I said. “You can’t faze me when it comes to their devilishness.”

  “It’s just that, well—I hope you won’t judge these ones too harshly,” said Log, her psychotic giggle turning into a psychotic giggle of concern.

  “Of course,” I said, wondering why Log was being so coy.

  “I hope you don’t judge them harshly . . . because they’re my parents.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  LOG’S KIN

  Log’s leprechaun parents, Dave with the Courage of a Minotaur and Mary with the Legs that Go on for Days, lived in a modest basement apartment at 723 Queen Moira Street. Their place was beneath a pawn shop called Teeth for Anything? Whether this business gives you teeth for your items, or you give them teeth in exchange for their items is not clear from the sign—and also, why the question mark?

  When we arrived at Dave and Mary’s wee door, I had been nonfatally stabbed six times. The stabbings were tiny and more annoying than anything, but it’s disconcerting to be nonfatally stabbed so much. There ought to be a law.

  Log took a pause and a deep breath at the squat front door. “I haven’t seen my folks in almost three years,” she said. “In truth, Ronan, I . . . um . . . this part is a bit awkward.”

  And then a most remarkable thing happened. A tear welled up in Log’s eye. Log, the toughest human being I have ever met.

  I did what she would do and squeezed her hand, hard. The wolfhounds could tell she was upset and nuzzled their bodies up close on either side of her. Wolfhounds are extremely sensitive, and will form a phalanx* around a sad human being.

  “I didn’t really think I would ever come back,” said Log. “I love me wee mum and da, but I mostly remember
them fighting. All the time. About everything. I said, ‘If you keep it up, you two, I’ll get you good. I’ll run away and join the beefie police! Just watch me!’ And I did. It took five tries, but I did just.”

  “You joined the Special Unit just to spite your parents?”

  “Oh yes. They’re major criminals. Me becoming a police officer was the perfect IRONIC PUNISHMENT!”

  I put my arms around Log, pulling her in close. She sniffled for a moment, right into the top of my beret, certainly getting some snot on it. I love the beret, but I love Log MacDougal more, and in my mind, her tears and snot only added to the beret’s sentimental value, possibly making it luckier, so it was all right.

  “We can go. We’ll find the captain another way,” I said. “Figs must know some folks.”

  “No,” said Log. “They must have been worried sick. And besides, this is the best part of any ironic punishment! The payoff! I can’t wait to see the looks on their faces.”

  I remembered vaguely that I once threatened my mum and da that I would hold my breath if they didn’t allow me to stay up late and watch an interview with Dame Judi Dench on RTÉ. I promptly passed out and did not get to see the interview.

  Log wiped her face, dusted off her cadet uniform, and thumped on the little door. There was a bit of cursing in the language of the faerie folk from the other side.

  “’Tis yer beefie baby come home with an ironic punishment!” yelled Log. Then she repeated this in the language of the faerie folk.

  It got suspiciously silent behind the door.

  “They think we’re thieves, trying to trick them,” said Log. “Most folks who knock on yer door here in the Pincushion are thieves. Mum is puttin’ on her brass knuckles right know, and Da’s pulling out his fightin’ mace. They’ll try to jump us.”

  I drew my shillelagh.

  “Ha. Don’t worry Ronan, Mum and Da couldn’t hurt a flea. ’Twas Da’s twenty-seven hundredth birthday last month,” said Log.

  The door burst open and two ancient leprechauns wobbled out like dizzy toddlers after a carnival ride.

  The male had a white beard, braided in the old leprechaun fashion with living clover. His face was as brown and wrinkled as a walnut. The female had a nutlike appearance as well, with electric red hair pinned up in buns. It was a hairstyle more suited for a wee woman in her early five hundreds (which made me think it was probably a wig).

  “Oi, oh that hurts so bad!” said the wee man, trying to swing his mace at my middle, but dislocating his shoulder and falling splat on his face.

  The tiny woman swung at me with a gorgeous set of brass knuckles, connecting directly with my knee protectors. The reverberation sent her right back onto her bum.

  “ME TRICK HIP!” she shrieked, her wig akimbo.

  Log scooped her parents up, holding them like a set of twin human babies.

  “What the devil!? WHO’S THERE?” said Log’s confused da. (Dave happens to be blind.) He reached out with his diminutive fingers and felt Log’s famous broken nose.

  “MY LOG!” said Log’s da, tears spraying from his eyes.

  “You probably been worried sick about me, haven’t ya? Been almost three years I’ve been gone,” said Log. “HA! I DID JUST WHAT I SAID—I JOINED THE BEEFIE POLICE!!

  There was then a remarkable lull that is hard to describe in the written word.

  “What’s that now? Did you go somewhere?” said Log’s wee father, blinking, a dim look on his crinkled face.

  “I ran away and joined the beefie police, just like I said I would. Did you not notice I was gone?” said Log, spinning to show her cadet uniform. “This was my ironic punishment to you.”

  “Iconic Punch and Mints? What’s that now? Gone where? Since when? Did you bring me those socks I asked ya fer?” said Log’s confused mum.

  It seemed Log’s parents didn’t notice or remember that she had run away. This might seem odd to humans, but while three years is quite a lot to humans, to the faerie folk this might feel like barely a minute.

  Log shrugged at me. She had done the Special Unit training five times—and just as a funny way to punish her parents. And they didn’t even notice.

  This is a major lesson: When you do something to punish someone else, take a moment to think, who really wins?

  Whatever grudge they had, the three of them seemed to get over it rather quickly. They soon embraced in a hysterical weeping and giggling festival. The faerie folks’ knack for crying is only rivaled with their talent for drinking. (Perhaps there is a correlation? One day science will tell us!)

  “Ronan, Figs, Lily, Rí, may I present me mum and da: Dave with the Courage of a Minotaur, and Mary with the Legs that Go on for Days,” said Log, proudly presenting her parents to us.

  Little Mary beamed. She was missing most of her teeth; one gold incisor seemed to be the last remaining cast member of her gums. Each of her wee legs would be approximately the length of your neck, and I’m assuming you have a normal-sized neck.

  “Get inside before ye get poked alive, beefies!” said Mary.

  “Too late,” I added for accuracy, feeling the sting in my various nonfatal stab wounds.

  “Me little wooden daughter!” wept Dave. “I LOVE ME LOG!”

  Log carried them through the squat door, folding herself down to half her normal size to do so.

  I pulled Dooley after me by the handcuffs. Figs and the wolfhounds followed last.

  The ceiling in the apartment was almost a meter shorter than Log, which explained her lackluster posture as an adult. But it wasn’t only the low ceiling that made the basement apartment feel intimate. Log’s mum was a bit of a “collector”—what humans would call a hoarder.

  There were some trails to navigate through the stuffed apartment, between the stacks of things that dominated the rooms, floor to very low ceiling. What’s in these stacks? you ask. Well, a few of the thousands of things I noticed: sixteen old spinning wheels, several thousand telephone books for North Ifreann and Suburbs, hundreds of boxes of shoe buckle polish, all unopened. Whole flats of Mikey Farrell’s Imitation Unicorn Meat. An entire corner stacked up with harps, some missing many or all of their strings, a suit of armor about the size for an adult squirrel, thousands of old issues of Gadfly!, thirty or so fiddles but no bows. A full list of items would be longer than the part of my journal you have read so far.

  Perching atop, or peeking out from, many of the stacks of things were cats.

  Oh-so-many cats.

  A quick count came to a dozen cats, at least. If something went amiss and we had to choose sides, we were outnumbered by cats. Whether these were magical cats, like the terrifying Scottish cat sìth, or just regular cats from the human realms, was as of yet undetermined. To a person with severe cat allergies, all cats can sometimes seem evil.

  Log’s folks hugged and keened for quite some time. Log made a gesture that we guests should at least try to join in all the weeping, as it’s customary at faerie family reunions—and so we did. I did my very best, taking off my beret and burying my face in it, making convincing unhappy sounds. Log and Rí howled along. Dooley, still cuffed to my wrist, made some disapproving sounds through his pointy nose.

  I wasn’t sure where Figs had disappeared to. I worried that he had ditched us and ducked out to a pickle parlor, but then I noticed a cat with a hat next to me and realized that he had shape-shifted again. I hoped that Figs would not stay a cat for long, as I wanted to keep a close eye on him, and there were already too many cats in the room for my comfort.

  The keening and wailing from Log and her folks continued with no end in sight. The wee folk sometimes weep with each other for a whole day—remember they live to be many thousands of years old, so time management is not a big deal for them. As a detective on vendetti, though, time was of the essence, and I signaled Log, can we wrap this up?

  “The detective and I are in a bit of a beefjif* to stop this evil ritual, Mum,” said Log, petting her mother lovingly and adjusting her wig.


  I cleared my throat, not trying to be rude, but there was no time to lose and I felt like I’d been losing time for days now.

  If I were to fail now, I would throw myself into the pit of fear gortas under the sewer cover on Friary Lane in Dublin.

  “My captain and mentor is in the clutches of someone called Crom Cruach,” I announced.

  “Crom Cruach! The ancient eater of humans?” Mary shuddered.

  “Um . . . I’m not familiar with the human-eating part, but he is a very icky old thing, yes. Once a mummy, now alive. While I have not seen him eat humans, he certainly has a bad reputation,” I said. “It’s likely that my parents unearthed him inadvertently.”

  The MacDougals shrieked, shaking the stacks of things. Cats and cat-form Figs scattered in every direction.

  “Legend holds that Crom Cruach would eat the firstborn in the old human villages—it gave him power, and he in turn gave them protection, strong crops,” said Dave. “But the wee folk who worship Crom Cruach would be at least a thousand years older than me!”

  “I’m afraid they very much exist,” I said. “They’re called the Cult of Crom Cruach, and they’re here in North Ifreann for some sort of ritual.”

  “Mum, Da, if ye were hosting an evil ritual here in town, where would ya do it?” asked Log of her tiny, walnut-faced parents.

  “Oh, easy, on a Nonsday?”* said Dave. “No place for that but the Noggin.”

  “Aye, a’course,” said Log, turning to me. “Noggin’s what we call the Shousting Dome, as it looks just like a human skull from above.”

  “To this dome!” I shouted, dragging Dooley behind me. Our exit would have been more dramatic, except for the stacks of things, which required that we duck very low, form a single-file line, and exit quite slowly and carefully, so as not to be buried alive by bric-a-brac.

  * Okay, Ronan Boyle, you know the word phalanx, but use vendetti? I call blarney on this. Your man in a tight corner, Finbar Dowd.

  * Slightly negative faerie-folk term for when humans try to rush them.

  * Since the wee folk have no sense of time, all days are Nonsday to them.