“Cu Sith,” Katie said thoughtfully. “And Cailleach Bheur.”
“What?”
“The green dog is a Cu Sith, a supernatural dog found in Scottish folklore, and the woman sounds like the Blue Hag or Cailleach Bheur, but in some lore, she a cross between a fairy and a goddess.”
“Great,” he groaned. “I hate to admit it, but I woke up screaming, and I couldn’t go back to sleep. All night long, I kept hearing something scratching at the glass.”
“The tree by some chance?” she suggested.
“I cut it back to keep it from doing just that,” Dan said, giving her a hard look. “Beside, I looked just to prove to myself that I was being crazy... and.”
He hesitated.
“Dan?”
“I looked out the window, Katie, and I swear, I saw her again! Only this time, I couldn’t have been dreaming. It scared the crap out of me so bad I got my gun, like it was going to do any good. As soon as I waved it at her, she vanished... just disappeared like a puff of smoke. I was shaking so hard, I holed myself up in the bathroom for the rest of the night with the gun on my knees.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I believe you. After what I saw last night and today, how could I not believe?”
“What’s happening in this town?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Katie said. “Which is why I need your help. I need you to find Crazy Tom.”
“Why?” Dan asked.
“Because I think he knows more about what’s happening than any of us,” she said.
“Here you go,” Maggie Sue said, stepping up to deliver the lunches. “You know, Dan, your Uncle needs to hire a couple of extra men.”
“Why?” Dan looked up at her, frowning defensively.
“Because I don’t like coming in and finding my tables and chairs upside down,” Maggie Sue said. “Took me all morning to get this lot back in order, and all your Uncle could do was shake his head and write it down as a vandal prank.”
Dan nodded. “I’ll mention it to him when he comes in tonight,” he said, “but I don’t think he’ll like the suggestion. We’ve gotten along with just the two of us for several years now what with the county and state cutbacks. This is usually a quiet place.”
Maggie Sue just grunted and left them to answer a request for more coffee. Katie picked up her sandwich, nibbled a corner and watched Dan poke at his fries. He took a deep breath and looked up.
“What makes you think Crazy Tom is the answer?” Dan asked.
“Well, you know all about this display I’m supposed to set up, and the trouble I had in the sub cellar that first day,” Katie said. “Now, I find out that it was Tom who gave Bud the key to the sub cellar, and told him to tell Durgan that Bud found in the attic.”
“Why would Tom do that?”
She shrugged. “All Bud could say was that Tom said it had to be. Which makes me wonder just what I’ve let out of the cellar, and if it has any connection to all the insane things happening here in Mercyville.”
“How could it?” Dan said, shaking his head. “I mean, we just had a bad night of vandalism. Like as not it’s a gang of drifters holed up in the woods that came down to torment us for a little while. And my dreams were probably just that—stupid dreams and too much peach cobbler. I probably dreamed I was awake and sleepwalked into the bathroom.”
“I don’t think everybody in Mercyville had the peach cobbler last night, Dan,” Katie said. “I think we’re up against something we don’t understand. Maybe there is more to this Erl-King Tom told me about. Maybe I did set him free...”
“Oh, come on, Katie,” Dan said. “You’re talking fairy tales.”
“You’re the one who saw the blue hag and the green dog,” she insisted.
He threw up his hands. “I saw a woman in a tree, and I’m not even sure I really saw that! It was a dream I had, and the rest of it was just my imagination going crazy! I really could have been sleepwalking.”
“Well, then everyone in town has the same problem,” she said. “The Hendersons, the MacGreeley’s... me! We all saw something last night.”
“I don’t want to start this, Katie,” Dan said. “I’m a deputy sheriff. I have to deal in cold, hard facts, and facts say that these fairy creatures don’t exist. Besides, Uncle seems to think I may be right about drifters up in the hills. He got word that a bunch of drifters were staked out near Townsend, and the Sheriff there drove ’em off because they were stealing eggs and tipping cows and making a lot of messes in the campgrounds.”
“We’re not talking about a bunch of drunks tipping cows,” Katie insisted. “We’re talking about thing that can’t be explained. People with blue skin and rats that look more like Rackham’s drawings of goblins...”
“We’re talking about troublemakers,” Dan said. “Maybe they paint themselves blue and dress funny to scare us into thinking it’s something else, but they’re just vandals, and as soon as we find out where they’re holed up, we’ll run ’em out of town!”
“Fine!” Katie said and tossed her sandwich down. “If I see any cows getting tipped, I’ll let you know!” She jerked open her purse, pulling out a few dollars and dropping them onto the table before lurching out of the booth.
“Katie, where are you going?”
“Back to work,” she groused.
“You haven’t finished your lunch,” he said.
“I’m not hungry,” she retorted. “You can eat it for me, and maybe you’ll dream about pink women this time.”
“Katie...”
She ignored the plea in his voice, stalking for the door. Dan stumbled to get out of his seat and follow, but she was out of the diner before he could. She charged across the street, casting an angry glower at the angels as she passed the center of the square. Lotta help you guys are, she thought.
She was inside the library before she stopped her fervent march. There, she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Drifters, my foot, she thought. Drifters would have to know the backwoods around here well enough to hide in them, and from what she knew, having been raised here, there were a good number of hollows that would serve them as campsites, but they had to know how to get in first. There were a lot of places in these mountains that were impossible to enter without knowing the way. Drifters were more apt to stick to roads that went somewhere. The road through Mercyville was a dead end. Not far past Katie’s farm, as a matter of fact, there was a gate. Beyond that, there was no pavement—just a winding dirt trail crawling up the mountain face that only horses and hikers and jeeps could easily traverse to enter the forest.
She glanced towards Crazy Tom’s favorite chair. He wasn’t there. Lonnie was at the desk, and her dark eyes held a curious glimmer.
“You’re back early,” she said in a quiet voice that meant Durgan must have been somewhere around.
“You want to get a lantern and go down in the sub cellar with me,” Katie said.
Lonnie frowned. “Why?”
“I just want company,” Katie said.
“But I don’t like dark holes in the ground,” Lonnie said.
“We’ll have lanterns,” Katie insisted. “Please.”
“I’m on the desk,” Lonnie said. “Charlotte won’t be back to relieve me for at least an hour.”
“Please...”
“Miss MacLeod, you’re back early,” Durgan said, and Katie turned to find him looking down at her like a vulture.
“I took a short lunch,” she said.
“Good, then you can get back to your project and stop pestering Miss Yellowcreek,” he said.
“Well, actually, Mr. Durgan, I was hoping you could let Lonnie come down and help me with a few things,” Katie said. “There’s really a lot of stuff to go through down there, and with two people, the display would go up a lot faster.”
Lonnie didn’t look too pleased, but she held her tongue.
“We can’t spare the extra staff.”
“I’m sure the MacGreeley sisters would appreciate getting
the display up sooner so they could look it over and give their opinions of it before we actually let the public see it,” Katie said. “After all, as members of the board, it would be unfair not to let them preview the display—in case there’s anything they might find offensive or want changed.”
Durgan had opened his mouth as though about to refute her, but the mentioning of getting MacGreeley approval stifled him momentarily. His gaze narrowed, passing to Lonnie, then back to Katie.
“Oh, very well,” he said. “It would make us look good with the MacGreeleys if we asked their approval. Miss Yellowcreek, as soon as your relief comes, you may go down and assist Miss MacLeod.”
“Yes, sir,” Lonnie said, casting Katie a hard look.
“Carry on,” he said and headed back to his office.
“If I did, I get fired,” Katie quipped softly. She glanced over at Lonnie. “I’ll be in the children’s room. Come fetch me there when Charlotte gets here.”
“Swell,” Lonnie said.
Katie smiled for her and headed for the hall. She wanted to look at a few things on fairy tales before she went back down. Though her own knowledge of folklore was extensive, it wouldn’t hurt to refresh herself. What was it Tom had mentioned earlier? Red thread and rowan to protect us from fae? Cold iron too, as she recalled. But there were other things to look at as well.
She realized it all sounded insane, and Dan might be perfectly right, but if that was so, then her own eyes were betraying her. The prowler had definitely had blue skin and glowing red eyes. She might want to dig through Briggs Encyclopedia of Fairy Lore too. There was supposed to be a copy in the reference collection.
Time passed in a flurry. She was flipping into the last volume of Lang’s colored fairy tale books when she heard a throat clearing in a timid manner. Katie turned to find a small, feathery woman standing at her shoulder. Miss Winona MacGreeley, youngest and least aggressive of the infamous triad of sisters, looked nervous.
“Dearie, could you help me?” Miss Winona said.
“What can I do for you Miss Winona,” Katie said, setting the book aside.
“I was looking for a book, and I don’t quite know how to find it. You see, when I was a little girl, I had book of stories that papa didn’t like, so he burned it.”
So that’s where you learned it, Katie thought. “What kind of stories?” she said.
“Well, they were about heathen things like magic and strange little people who would sometimes grant wishes, and sometimes hurt people who did wrong.”
“Fairy tales?” Katie said. And here she thought she was the only one to notice.
“Yes, and they had these pictures by this man they said was famous for drawing, but I can’t remember his name.”
A typical patron request, Katie mused. “Well, I’m sure we have several books like that. Would any book do?”
“Oh, no, you see, I remember this one picture of a man who was supposed to be an elf, and he was strange looking, and I was hoping to find that again. I think the man’s name started with an R...”
“Rackham,” Katie said. “We’ve got a number of books with his illustrations. Let’s see...”
She started on one of the piles she had set aside, for it contained all the collections of fairytales. Several were illustrated by Rackham, and Katie quickly pulled these out. Miss Winona watched, eyes growing eager and bright as a child’s. She had never been much like her older sisters. They were the bane of freethinking, while Katie had often noticed Miss Winona sometimes hesitated to condemn others too quickly.
“That’s the one,” Miss Winona said, suddenly touching the covers of an old copy of fairy tales. Her hands trembled as she took it from Katie’s grasp, and briefly, Katie wondered what the old woman planned. Sweet as she might be compared to her sisters, she still had strong objections to what she considered “unfit heathen trash.” More than once, Katie had been forced to chase down one of the MacGreeleys to wrestle a condemned volume from their grasp.
Yet, Miss Winona was gentle as she pushed back the pages. She stared at several of the drawings, then paused and touched the page. “There he is,” she said. “He’s just like the man I saw.”
“You saw a man that looked like that?” Katie peered at the picture. Typical of Rackham’s style, there was a lot of black ink line drawing washed over in colors that were somber and downright spooky. It was enough to make Katie shiver, for she saw a vague resemblance to the thing that stood at her door last night, only more Victorian.
“Yes,” Miss Winona said. “He was walking across our yard last night. I saw him plain as day as I was out on the porch swing. Sister Alma and sister Mae told me I was wrong, but I insisted on calling the sheriff. After all, a man who dresses like that must be dangerous!”
She handed the book back to Katie.
“I hear the Sheriff had to go back to your place again last night,” Katie suddenly aspired.
“Oh, yes,” Miss Winona said. “As if the prowler wasn’t bad enough, then we had all these unclothed people dancing in a circle on our lawn. They ran away of course, but you know, I went out this morning to see if they’d messed up our grass, being as we just re-seeded the lawn back in the spring, and I found the oddest thing.”
“What?” Katie encouraged.
“A circle of toadstools—really big ones. Sister Alma told the gardener to tear them out, but he’s a superstitious old fool and refused to do it. He said it was bad luck to tear up a fairy ring. Can you imagine anyone believing that?”
Katie bit her tongue.
“Well, I must go now. You take care of yourself Miss MacLeod, and thank you, dearie.”
She whisked out of the room like a true southern lady, quiet as velvet sliding over steel. Katie sighed, opening the book to look at the picture once more. The resemblance struck her again.
“Erl-Kings and fairy rings,” she muttered. “Blue hags and green hounds. All we need now are brownies, and a kelpie to complete the tale, and we’ll have the whole shebang of Scottish folklore right here in East Tennessee. What a thought.”
She closed the book and set it aside, going back to the reference section to take a look at the Briggs.
SIX
“Did you have any trouble at your place last night?” Katie asked as she led the way into the main cellar.
“What kind of trouble?” Lonnie said with a suspicious look around at the stacks of crates and furniture.
“Vandals,” Jennie said, though she’d been tempted to ask about blue-skinned men and mischievous faery folk.
Lonnie shook her head. “Not really. I mean, there was some dude off in the woods playing around on a tin whistle most of the night, and Mazie kept whining and wanting in my lap, even though I keep telling that Lab she’s not a lapdog.”
Katie grinned. She was familiar with the infamous Mazie, whom Lonnie had raised from a pup. The dog didn’t have enough brains to find her way out of a doghouse. “You shouldn’t have treated her like one when she was a puppy,” she said.
“She was cute then,” Lonnie said. “Anyway, she went under the bed and cried all night.”
“But no trouble, otherwise?”
Lonnie shook her head. “Don’t invite trouble and it won’t come.”
Wish I’d thought of that when I was messing around down in the sub cellar, Katie mused. “What kind of music was it?”
“Sounded like that stuff you play all the time,” Lonnie said. “Only more eerie.”
“But nothing bothered you?”
“Not a soul,” Lonnie said. “My place is always well protected from bad vibes.”
“With what?”
“God’s eyes and dream catchers.”
Katie had reached the main door. She put an ear to it and listened.
“What are you listening for,” Lonnie said.
“Bogles,” Katie said.
Lonnie made a face. “Your mother was crazy to let your father tell you all those spooky stories.”
“Like the Cherokee folk tal
es she told weren’t scary?” Katie retorted. “I used to have nightmares about the shaman who turned into a snake and devoured all those children.”
“She made that one up to make you and Adam behave.”
“I know.”
“It didn’t work either, did it?”
“Cute,” Katie said and motioned for Lonnie to be quiet. Ear pressed to the wood, she couldn’t hear a thing. Perhaps they’d gone back into their corners. She was wishing now she hadn’t left the lantern below turned off.
“Why do you want me to go down there?” Lonnie said
Katie straightened up and reached into her pocket for the key. “Because, if I’m crazy, I want a witness.”
“To commit you?”
“To tell me I’m not crazy,” Katie said.
Lonnie shrugged indifferently. “So what are we going to be looking for?”
“Bogles,” Katie said.
“You’re pulling my leg.”
“You’re still standing on it.” Katie said.
“Seriously, Katie,” Lonnie said. “What are we after?”
“I don’t know. I keep hoping to find a clue. You haven’t seen Crazy Tom since this morning, have you?”
“Nope,” Lonnie said with a sigh. “Not since he started going on about Unseelie and had Durgan fuming.”
“Red thread and rowan,” Katie muttered. She’d gleaned from her reading that those were indeed methods of keeping faery folk at bay, along with iron and steel. With that in mind, she had crept over to the general store and purchased horseshoe nails and a skein of crimson embroidery thread. Even now she had several bundles of nails bound up in thread in her pocket—just in case it did work, she had told herself. She turned the key and listened to it click. No sign that anything waited beyond. She turned on her flashlight, wanting to have it ready, and Lonnie did the same.
“What’s a rowan anyway?” Lonnie asked.
“Old world tree,” Katie said. “Over here, we call it Mountain Ash.”
“How come you know all this stuff?”
Angels of Mercy Page 6