by R L Wagner
“I happened upon it while eating ice cream, strangely enough. Also, strong emotions seem to lock in an artifact’s destination as well.”
“Then you received the Harpooner’s tooth on the steps of the museum, put it in the satchel in a bag on top of a cloth marked with vanilla, right?” It sort of makes sense, I thought.
“Yes, you’re good. Using vanilla is my way of mapping artifacts,” Uncle Scott said.
“And the red and green keys are
Philosopher’s Stones?” I asked.
“Say, you’re all over this case, aren’t you, missy!” Uncle Scott sounded very pleased and surprised. “I have no way of telling what a Philosopher’s Stone even is, and I’m too cautious to have these camera stones analyzed. Since everything is possible, why not a
Philosopher’s Stone and a Gaelic curse? Sometimes I find it useful to suspend disbelief and just follow the leads.” He sounded resolved.
Benny entered dressed with his shoes on his hands. He gave a morning hug to Uncle Scott, shoes and all.
“Good morning, Benny. You feeling okay?” I asked.
“I feel good, but I didn’t sleep much, too many nightmares about mean people laughing at me. The man in black was there, laughing at me too.”
Uncle Scott and I exchanged a concerned look.
“How long has it been since we left Clayton?” Benny continued, finding the pastries. “Sweet! Are these ours?”
“Yes, have some,” Uncle Scott said looking down out the window. “McCurdy is here, kids. We’re off.”
We exited the front doors of the inn and stepped into the cool air sweet with the smells of fresh baking bread. A sleepy hush blanketed the town on this crisp morning. The violent ‘nine year storm’ of last night, left the streets washed and wet with two feet of morning mist rising off the lane’s wet cobblestones. The broken Inverness Inn sign, barely attached to its chain, hung over a ladder ready for repair. Across the street the jeweler’s sign clock glistened 5:15. The Harpooner waited by a wooden, buckboard wagon with black, upholstered bench seats and a surrey cover on top. An old, bay horse was our motor.
“What’s your horse’s name, Mr.
McCurdy?” Benny asked.
“Lavern, named after my sister,” he said without a smile.
“Wow, maybe I should name a horse after you, Sally,” Benny whispered.
I rolled my eyes at him.
“Where does your sister live, Mr. McCurdy?” Benny asked.
McCurdy gave Benny a stern look and answered, “Lavern and her boys live south in the town of Loch Lumen.”
I jumped into the back seat with the blankets and satchel. McCurdy supervised as Uncle Scott and Benny loaded the long, wooden camera case and food basket into the wagon’s bed. Benny tripped backward, over wooden buckets and fishing net.
“What are these things rolled up in the cloth tarp, Mr. McCurdy?” Benny asked.
“Those ‘things’ are my brother’s last three unclaimed harpoons. My uncle fabricated them at his shop.” He was now leering at Benny.
“Oh, I almost forgot. These are for you, Mr. McCurdy. They’re really good! They have cinnamon and walnuts!”
Benny handed him two pastries rolled in a yellow, cloth napkin. He climbed over the seat next to me. Uncle Scott shot a wink at Benny. Benny shot one back. Lavern took her cue from the snap of the long, leather straps and lurched ahead, clopping heavily over the street’s wet stones.
Inverness surprised me with its
unexpected beauty. Graceful bridges spanned the impressive water channels. The architecture looked like a storybook village collided with castles. With every turn of my head, tall Palladian, Gothic, and Scottish Victorian buildings grew out of the ground fog. I felt dizzy and excited, like I was let loose in a sweet shop featuring the grandest assortment of desserts and candies. For sure, I will be an architect!
“It’s like every building is wearing a different hat,” Benny said looking up and forgetting to close his mouth.
And he was right. No two buildings were alike. Atop five and ten story stone and brick buildings were slender spires and gingerbread stone detailing. Tall chimneys were sprinkled over mock battlements and cone cap turrets. Glass domes, stained glass windows, metal balconies, and streetlamps had been added over the centuries.
“What’s that? What’s that? What’s that?” Benny kept asking the Harpooner as if he were our tour guide. Mr. McCurdy answered Benny every time.
Just past a gothic cathedral built out of pink sandstone, Lavern pulled us out of
storybook land and into the Scottish countryside. For maybe half a mile, we climbed up a long road of gray rocks and boulders that skirted the mountain ridge, then it sprang suddenly below us – the immense, blue water channel of Loch Ness. It was so much bigger than I ever
imagined. Easily monsters could remain lost here, hiding undetected in the dark waters. From this height, the surrounding mountains looked like a quilt patchwork of assorted fenced-in farms and fields, all bordered by rich green glens and thick woods – breathtaking. In light of early morning, we reached a shady forest of hefty trees.
“Scottish oak, this is!” Mr. McCurdy called out this once without Benny asking. Benny and he both ate the remains of the pastries.
Benny leaned over and whispered into my ear, “I think he’s starting to like me.”
I looked at Benny. We smiled, nodding in agreement. The wagon took a sudden dip downward. We grabbed on tight to our seats. The pothole made our heads knock together. We laughed in pain and rubbed our heads. The satchel flipped off my lap and hung from my shoulder. Lavern called out with a sharp disapproving whinny. Uncle Scott turned and checked on us with a big smile.
Our view of the steel-blue loch
disappeared, hidden behind the thick branches of a tall oak tunnel. The strong morning sun broke around the leaves, shooting hundreds of bright, golden rays through the broad thicket. Golden sun dots blanketed everything, freckling Lavern’s red-brown back, the wagon, the damp, green, surrounding grasses and us.
“Sun dots!” Benny called out.
“Sun fairies!” McCurdy called back.
The wide trail descended with rolling, gentle switchbacks, turning slowly to the right and slowly to the left. We meandered on this path across majestic, wooded glens and open meadows of white and purple, winter wild flowers. The daybreak songs of small, colorful birds called to us.
I was greeted by a flitting, ruby-top humming bird that skirted only inches from my face and then fled, quickly retreating to the promise of meadow wildflowers. Occasional, small waterfalls fell, bubbling over logs, boulders and bumps. Everywhere, unbelievable glimpses of Mr. McCurdy’s ancient Highland magic called to us.
Abruptly, it rose before us. The forest halted, encroaching no further. Below, Castle Urquhart’s broken ruins sat like a dark home of ghosts in a bowl of mist.
“That’s the painting above your fireplace, Uncle Scott,” I blurted. “At your pub
apartment.”
He shot me a smile and bounced his eyebrows high.
“It’s the monster’s address,” the
Harpooner choked.
The wagon’s metal undercarriage squealed all the way through our downward descent. Lavern whinnied and carefully trotted forward, clomping over the worn gravel path. Ours were the only sounds. Castle Urquhart sat silently on the back of two conjoined mounts flanked on three sides by the fast, rippling waves of Loch Ness. The land’s narrow point
resembled the rocky knuckles and wrist of a long, withered, giant’s hand that stretched and clawed deeply into the dark, loch. An ominous smoky mist swirled off the plentiful, long grasses growing from the broken battlements, village ruins, and the remnants of the perimeter war walls. Rising high above the fog were the three remaining ramparts of the majestic square tower. A sudden breeze shot through Urquhart’s decay and cracks. It carried haunting whispers from the grand mountain across the loch, over the monster’s deep waters, and to us.
We were the only ones there. It was totally spooky. I was happy we passed the castle without stopping.
“You believe the fairy court still lives there inside the mountain, Mr. McCurdy?” Benny blurted out yet another uncomfortable question.
Mr. McCurdy pondered a moment and reluctantly answered, “I do not know about fairies Benjamin, but Cousin Edward wrote of hearing an eerie howl from the water grotto deep inside the cave. Curator O’Malley said the tooth came from a creature that was mammal, and …”
“…And mammals can’t breathe living always under water,” Benny said.
“You’re thinking with me now,
Benjamin,” Mr. McCurdy said, smiling at Uncle Scott.
I almost died of shock. For an old sea salt, he sure had a nice smile and teeth.
“I believe the monster makes its home and finds shelter in the grottos and caves and of course remains there, out of harm, during the severe thunders and storms, so to speak,” Mr. McCurdy said.
“So then they avoid the harsh weather all together,” I added.
Uncle Scott turned to Benny and me. “This starts the scene of the case, kids.
McCurdy’s cove lies just over that knoll,” he said while looking carefully ahead.
Without speaking, Benny and I stared to the loch’s rippling waters, looking for a
monster’s arrival.
The cold mists found us. We pulled our blankets tighter. Lavern pulled us through the fog with disapproving snorts. The painting in my mind was coming together. It was making some sense. I was half expecting to see cave entrances to the Queen’s underground tunnels below in the many surrounding crags. Five minutes further, atop the next mountain, we rode above the clouds, finding a momentary spot of sun. Below, a patchwork of still white billows hung above the Harpooner’s storybook cove.
“It’s beautiful, Mr. McCurdy,” I said.
“It’s been with the clan for over 700 years, Sally,” Mr. McCurdy said. Lavern concurred, proceeding faster to her home.
The inlet opened just south of the castle. From high, the ground fog gave the appearance that a light snow had fallen. Two, miniature buildings on the far southern bank looked like a make-believe fortress with turrets. The bay resembled a figure-eight shape. The largest part of the bay formed nearly two-thirds of a circle and opened to the loch. The smaller, inner cove looked like a circular, one-acre lagoon. Across the lake’s mouth sat two piers facing each other with a narrow channel of water between them. Behind the northern pier, the mountain descended, abruptly stopped, forming a tall, steep cliff. Slow falling mist slid over the wild green heather, appearing as a ghost waterfall.
“It was right there,” Mr. McCurdy pointed, “that Edward wrote about the fissure that opened and closed.”
We descended along a sweeping crescentshaped road just above the lake. Through the bank’s mist poked crowded bouquets of purple thistle, beds of tall water grass, and long clusters of brown cattails. Frogs stopped singing as we approached. Benny turned to me with his enormously wide toad eyes and air-packed bulging cheeks.
Ahead McCurdy Manor appeared through the thick, tulle vapors resembling a tiny castle, still and ancient with its waiting, cold stones. Lavern pulled between the second pier and the stone manor. Beside the house, a tall timbered barn stood. Like thumbs up on clenched fists, each building grew tall stone towers standing beside each other. Off the barn’s west corner, rose a stone corn storage silo. It faced the second taller tower uniquely featured on the east corner’s stone architecture. There, an abandoned lighthouse stood impressively tall reminding all of alerts that had beamed steadily across the cove for centuries. Between the buildings, a large victory garden of dead corn stocks, dying vines of gourds, assorted squashes, and orange pumpkins quietly molded and withered. Several inches of tulle fog hugged the ground in random patches and floated over the lake’s murky water. I had never seen anything like this. It looked like see-through snow. It was magical.
“Another two hours and it won’t be here at all, having been burned off from the morning sun.” McCurdy answered my unasked question.
We jumped off the wagon and walked onto the pier. A large, startled, brown, mother duck waddled quickly past us, scattering her babies to the water’s edge. She herded them into the mist and found protection under the planks.
“The air is so clean. It’s like breathing in from a cool humidifier,” Benny said. The glowing, white sun steadily seared through the motionless gray clouds.
“It does look like a fairy dream, Mr. McCurdy,” I said.
“Or a nightmare,” the Harpooner
whispered.
That caught Benny’s ear. “I had a doozey of a nightmare last night, Mr. McCurdy,” Benny whispered back to the Harpooner. “I couldn’t get rid of it. Mean people just kept laughing. Do you ever have bad dreams?”
Uncle Scott and I looked at each other and froze as we waited for the Harpooner’s response. So far he had answered every question. Mr. McCurdy lowered himself off the wagon onto his crutch, and then hopped over to Benny.
“When the next night terror grips you Benjamin, shake it off steady, and tell the dream firmly to go away. In some dreams, we cannot control the bad people, scary people, mean people, but we can control ourselves. Just tell it all to go away. Still your waters and you will be at peace.
“That really works?” Benny asked.
“When I was your age it served me. Tell them, ‘Be gone nightmare! You will not harm me further!’” Mr. McCurdy said through a sheepish grin. Benny was clearly thinking about it.
“You have kids Mr. McCurdy?” Benny continued his questions.
“No, Benjamin,” he answered.
“Too bad!” Benny said, walking to the back of the wagon.
Mr. McCurdy stared at Benny for a long moment. Both Uncle Scott and I noticed.
We unloaded our gear and set up Uncle Scott’s tripod camera at the end of the pier. We laid out a blanket and basket for a lagoon picnic.
“Yikes!” Benny yelled with a hint of fear from the lake bank. “Mr. McCurdy, there are a lot of dead fish here! Big ones!”
“I was counting on it, Benjamin,” Mr. McCurdy shouted back. “It happens after big storms.”
Uncle Scott and Mr. McCurdy brought the wooden buckets and a long pole fish net to Benny. I stood out near the end of the pier, holding my nose.
“Scoop the fish up and put them in the buckets,” Uncle Scott instructed.
“Why?” Benny and I said in unison with a flare of disgust.
“You bring me the fish, and I make them into chum,” Mr. McCurdy said.
“What’s chum?” we asked at the same time again.
“It’s chopped up, bloody fish pieces to be used as fish food and bait. It’s mainly associated with calling and catching sharks.” Uncle Scott smiled and raised his eyebrows up and down as he explained.
“Are we calling and catching sharks? Ohhhh!” Benny said, getting it.
“We’re calling a monster!” I shouted at Benny, mocking him. I briskly backed up from the edge of the pier and smoothed my hair back from my face. “So, where is ole’ Nessie?”
Uncle Scott picked up a stone and threw it about 30 feet in front of the pier. It made a splash through the thinning mist and finished in big rippling circles.
“Right there kids, it will be right about there!”
Was it a suckers bet? The way Uncle Scott said it was almost as if he had done this before.
18 Monster’s Bite
“ Everyone is in the barn and I’m all alone out here talking to myself in 1883. I’m sitting on this pier by the beautiful storybook, ‘cursed’ Loch Ness lagoon, just waiting for the monster to come.” I paused. “I always talk to myself when I’m nervous.” Inside my head I was yelling. It was more than just nerves; it was totally plain scary!
“The picnic looks nice, perfect plaid blanket and enormous packed basket. Yeah, Kitty!” Keep up the chatter, Sally, it’s good for the jitters.
“Let’
s see, inside this basket sits a bounty: fruit, hard-boiled eggs, ah maybe pâté, tea, three roasted chickens, one vegetable root salad I’m guessing, glorious breads, crackers, and spreads, (yes, that rhymes), a lot of colorful stuff in jars, and of course – a tavernmade apple pie.”
“Busy hands keep the monsters at bay, funny, yeah? Yep!” I said, proceeding to make three rockin’ sandwiches generously smeared with Kitty’s put-hair-on-your-chest mustard and one without. I wiped my hands and sat there for oh – an eternity.
“Auggah!” I almost jumpe d out of my skin. The biggest blue dragonfly ever buzzed by my right ear, dove, zipped inches across the water, stopped to hover for a second, then soared up and out of sight. I took a deep breath and threw a pebble into the lake, watching the rings ripple and grow across the water, and fade far away from the pebble’s impact.
“Nine rings, seven pebbles left,” I said to myself. It occurred to me that I am like that pebble, and the rings are like possible rippling time destinations that are always surrounding me. “Wow, huh? I would never have thought like that a couple of days ago.” I threw another pebble, watching carefully. “Now everything is different,” I said, trying to accept I was actually a declared new Mystery Buster.
“It’s quiet,” I noticed. “So sure, I’m alone and nervous, but better to make sandwiches than make stinky gross chum. And I’m talking to myself a lot, even for me.” I threw another pebble and reviewed the clues. “So, Mr. McCurdy, you say the place is cursed, and that pretty much because of this place you’re cursed too, and your family has been for 700 years – give or take. Talk about a long nightmare. And I’ll just keep talking right out loud, thank you. It helps!” I said justifying it and trying to get the whole situation to make sense.
“You say it’s a sucker’ s bet, Uncle Scott. That Nessie coming today is a sure thing. Maybe she’s late. It’s so weird knowing something is going to happen before it does.” I pitched the rest of the pebbles in the lagoon and watched maybe a hundred rings bounce around and glide rippling through each other. “I don’t know how you picked up this case, Uncle Scott. Did the Harpooner call you in, or Nessie? I bet it’s because you just had to know, huh, Uncle Scott?”