Mythology Abroad (25 page)

Diane shook her head. “It’s got to be a mistake. No one knows we’re staying here yet. I haven’t even called my folks.”

“It’s likely a wrong number then,” Mrs. Keane said reasonably. “Certainly our telephone system is none of the best, but I am sure he asked for a Mr. Doyle.”

“Well, it’s not like it’s an uncommon name around here,” Diane smiled. She closed the door and went back to drying her hair.

O O O

Michaels had gotten no joy from the Genealogy Office. It seemed that O’Day had embarked on what would be a legitimate ancestor search. He must be planning to keep the Keith Doyle persona for a long time. Michaels was reassured then that O’Day and the others were unaware that they were being followed, or he would have discarded the pretended identity like a used tissue.

The Ordinance Survey Bookshop in Dublin had been much more forthcoming. The Clerk remembered the red-haired American. O’Day had purchased a list of guesthouses in the area south of Dublin, and if he was staying with his assumed identity, would be putting up in one of them. All Michaels had had to do was call down the list of numbers until he found them.

***

C
HAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The four travelers spent the next few days searching the countryside for anything which sounded a chord in the Master’s memory. Keith worked out a system of triangulation by which they circled an area, covering all the small roads within it, and they were able to reduce the area of search considerably. Still, the process was slow.

The weather contrived to cause the search to be slower still. It was nice the day after they arrived, but thereafter, a low front moved in over Ireland, dousing them in rain every day and raising the ambient humidity considerably. Keith kept the defogger running constantly to keep the windows clear, so the passengers had to shout over the noise of the fan. He knew the Master was looking for particular landmarks, some of them small. One for which he kept his eyes peeled was a rock fall. There were plenty in this part of the country, and the Master looked at them all, rejecting one after another.

“It could be ground up into pebbles by now,” Keith said. “It might not be here anymore.”

“They von’t haf moved it,” the Master assured him. “But I am not sure I remember vhy.”

Diane checked off another small section as they turned off one of the narrow roads marked on the map, and noticed an interesting entry. “Well, that’s that for this part. Say, did you know that those mountains out there are supposed to contain gold mines?”

“Yes, of course,” the Master replied absently. “It vas a valuable resource to us. Though the mines were not safe after a time, and they began to yield less. They kept out the Big Folk, but of course ve did not ask their permission.”

“Uh huh,” Keith said. “And that’s where you got your pots of gold, eh?”

“Keith Doyle!” Holl exclaimed, outraged, quickly deducing where that line of logic was leading. “In your own research, leprechauns are reputed to be hand high.”

“Depends on how high you hold your hand,” Keith replied blithely.

“Stop the car,” the Master ordered suddenly. Keith coasted to a halt, and the Master got out. Among a crowd of smaller trees down the slope from the roadside, two huge oak trees stood, seemingly sprouted from the same root. Keith followed him partway, to make sure nothing happened to him. Ignoring the rain, he watched the Master hurry toward them, almost sliding down the hillside, which was ankle-deep in last year’s leaves. The teacher examined the trees, walking around them, and reaching as high into the fork as he could. Then the little man’s shoulders slumped, all the starch gone out of them. He turned back and walked back, not looking up at the car. By the time he ascended the slope, Keith was sitting behind the wheel, waiting politely.

“Shall we go on? I think you wanted us to try this way next.”

From then on, Keith kept an eye out for twinned oak trees. As they drove higher, trees became fewer. He took the next road which sloped downward. Ahead of him, he could see the brilliant green of leaves once more. The road twisted and rose higher, but this hill was copiously forested and blocked them from seeing more than fifty yards ahead. Keith felt hope stir when he saw the Master’s face out of the corner of his eye. The little teacher wanted to smile, but he didn’t dare. Keith felt his heart start beating faster. This time, it was the real thing. They must be close.

They passed several huge trees to which had been tied red and yellow signs. Keith couldn’t read them through the rain, but they appeared to be protesting something to do with the Council.

“Take the next turning toward the hilltop,” the Master ordered. “Tvin oak trees. Ah! Those are the vuns. They vere smaller vhen I vas last here.” Holl gazed at the trees, as if being remembered by the Master somehow ennobled them above all other oaks.

Keith pointed. “Is that your rockfall?” he asked. Across the valley to their left, half a hillside had collapsed, leaving a heap of gigantic boulders. A rare angle of perspective through the rain and the clear air made the monument seem to be much smaller and immediately beside them. “So that’s why you were so sure no one would move it over the years. It’s a mountain! Here we are!”

Keith steered the car into a small turning, slick with mud, and stopped.

“Vhat’s this?” the Master demanded. Before them was no village of cottages, but a small street of newly built houses, surrounded by churned-up earth.

“This is the hilltop,” Keith said, looking around him in confusion.

“This vas not here before. Vhat is it?” the Master asked in an agitated voice.

“It’s a housing project,” Keith replied, reading a yellow sign tied to a tree at the entrance to the site. “Really recent. There’s still mud all over the streets, and no grass yet. And I guess it’s not a very popular project. Look at that.”

Holl read the notice. “It asks the local folk to rally against the council and the developers. They wish others to boycott the project, and not buy the houses or prevent others from taking residence, ‘because only Peeping Toms would live here.’” Several other signs had been tied up all over the street. They were visible on the young trees planted in front of every house, and tied to almost every doorknob.

Behind them an engine raced, and a voice shouted at them through the rain. Keith glanced into the mirror and hastily moved the car aside. A lorry thundered past them into the development, carrying a gang of skinny trees.

“Where are your folk?” Keith asked the Master.

“Gone.” The Master climbed out of the car and walked blindly along the muddy street. Keith and the others followed him. The new houses watched them with blank glass eyes like rows of mannequins.

“Gone,” the Master said forlornly. “All has been destroyed. Are they all dead?”

“It was a nice place,” Keith offered, following the little teacher and trying to be soothing. “There’s a great view.”

The Master stopped and looked away reminiscently. “And the river vas only a hundred paces away. The vells vere sweet. The air is as I remember it. There is as yet only the faintest stink of cifilization here.”

“It looks like this place isn’t happy,” Keith said, wondering what made him think that.

The Master turned a penetrating gaze on him. “It is not. You can sense it. Imagine vhat anger
we
can sense. The Big Folk down there think that it is bad because these new buildings overlook them. That is incorrect. It is because a magical place that has been here from the beginning has been uprooted. They shall have no joy of it. But it is too late.” He raised his hands helplessly to encompass the muddy streets. “Too late. It is ruined. They do not know what they haf done, but the earth vill tell them.”

Keith remembered being swallowed up by the earth on the hilltop in Callanish, and stopped the small teacher with a hand on his arm. “Is there, um, something sentient underneath there? Like a monster?”

The Master smiled sadly. “Ah, no, merely the Earth. Only Nature. But ve treated it vith respect, and they have not. Vill not,” he added.

“Should we warn them?” Keith asked with concern.

“Vhat good vould it do? Can you warn the developers in your own country that what they are disturbing is vengeful?”

“No,” Keith admitted honestly. “But what about the tenants? It’s not their fault they’re going to be living over a magic volcano.”

“They’d call you a nut if you told them that,” Diane said firmly. “Nobody is moving in here against their will. They’d think you owned one of the houses down there.” She pointed to the offended neighborhood.

Together, they walked the perimeter of the entire housing estate, looking for anything which had been left undisturbed. The area around the streets had been piled high with the earth excavated from the building sites. Mature trees had been pushed down and left in scattered heaps like jackstraws.

“They must haf left directions to where they had gone,” the leader said sadly, “if there vere any who could leaf them. But it is all destroyed, beyond where they beliefed it might be, by the big-footed fools. Are ve the only vuns left?”

“Maybe they’re still close by,” Keith suggested hopefully, unwilling to declare the Master’s folk dead. He threshed his way out into the nearest large field and called out a halloo with his hands cupped around his mouth, “Yo! Little People!”

“Oh, stop that,” Diane said impatiently, running out after him and bringing him back. “This field is full of nettles. Let’s get out of here. You’re soaked, and so am I. So are they.” She nodded back at the Master, who was standing in the growing downpour looking lost. “This place is too creepy to stay in.”

There was silence in the little car for a long while. Keith turned the heater on full blast to try and dry them, but succeeded only in making them feel sticky and uncomfortable. He rolled down the window a crack, and let the coolness of tiny drops of rain come in.

“Do you think they stayed close by?” Keith asked the Master, who was sitting deep in thought, stroking his beard. “I mean, you guys are not too big on travel.”

“I haf no idea. There is no vay to tell vhen the village vas abandoned.” The Master stared sadly into space.

The rain began to break up. Brave spears of sunlight poked between the clouds and lit up that much of a hill or this much of a valley, striking up the golds and greens in the landscape, and dropping curious shadows down the valleys. The photographer in Keith refused to be contained any longer.

He pulled the car over near a likely field, where the hedge was low, and climbed up. Beneath him lay a broad and handsome valley like a sampler, dotted with sheep or stitched with growing crops. Clusters of woods lay at the right intersection of the perfectly straight lines of trees and brush which separated fields.

“Yoo-hoo! Little Folk!” he called down, waving his arms. “Hey, Holl, how do you say ‘where are you’ in your language?”

“I don’t,” the Little Person shot back. “Don’t waste your time. Take your picture and come down.”

“All right, spoilsport,” Keith said. “I’m only trying to help.”

O O O

Michaels huddled over the wheel of his car and wished again for the omnidirectional microphones of the American secret service. O’Day was signaling to someone, with an air of expectancy. He feared that it was quite likely to be the connection that would make this entire investigation worthwhile, and his elderly listening mechanism couldn’t pick up a sound. The small blue car rolled again, and Michaels followed, careful to keep his distance. An unexpected turn could throw him into line-of-sight, or lose O’Day in the distance. Something was sure to happen imminently.

O O O

At any likely point when he wanted to take a picture, Keith repeated his antics on the hedge, and called out to any of the Little Folk who might be listening. Holl had given up trying to stop him, and sat in the car patiently with Diane, waiting for Keith to run out of film.

They stopped on a ridge of land that overlooked two points in the great valley, both satisfyingly picturesque. Happily, Keith got out, and leaned over the gorse-covered wall on one side to take an exposure. The hedge on the other side was too high and too flimsy to climb. Eyeing the nettles and gorse cautiously, Keith walked back to the car. Bracing one foot on the car bumper and the other among the heather, he hoisted himself up far enough to see over the wall.

Below was a broad sward of green populated by a herd of cows, who stood or lay on the flattened, wet grass, ignoring the waving and shouting of a figure like a demented scarecrow.

“Hello there,” a voice called from behind him. Keith twisted his spine around and glanced back. There was a tan car parked about fifty feet behind him. A man had climbed out of it, and was walking toward them. He was of middle height and had wavy red hair.

Keith jumped down with his hands on the car roof for balance. “Hi!” he called back. “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing for me,” the man said cheerfully, coming up close to him. “Having a bit of car trouble? I saw you waving. I thought you might be signaling for help.”

Keith laughed. “Oh, no. Everything’s fine. We’re just taking pictures. Beautiful day for it.”

The man looked up and down at his sodden clothes, and grinned at him. His eyes were hazel-green. “It is now. Goodbye, then.”

“Thanks anyway,” Keith called. The man threw him a salute and drove off.

“Didn’t he look like the map of Ireland?” Keith commented. “As my grandmother would say.”

“I would say he looked just like you, plus ten years or so,” Holl called through the window in amusement.

“I noticed,” Keith said, winding the film forward in his camera. “My uncle Rob and he could almost be twins.”

“But what I found more interesting is that the sticker on the back window of his car said ‘Doyle’s Garage,’” Holl pointed out. “He did offer to help you fix your car. I wonder if he owns the place, or merely rents from them.”

“What?” Keith leaped into the driver’s seat. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“I thought you could read that for yourself,” Holl protested. The others braced themselves as the little blue car leaped forward. It raced down the road in pursuit of the sedan. Keith thought he saw the tan car ahead of him.

“We’ll catch him at the next turning,” he said.

The next intersection was a blind angle to a crossroads. Each of the other three branches was empty. “We lost him,” Keith said sadly.

“Never mind,” Diane said. “If you had any doubts before if we were in the right place, you better have lost them now.”

“Oh, well,” Keith said, pulling over to the side of the road. It was narrow, so the left wheels were wedged up among the nettles and gorse. A quick glance in the mirror showed the Master’s crestfallen face. He was still hurting after finding the old homestead abandoned. Keith needed a distraction, any distraction. He looked up at the way posts at the crossroads. “Look, that way is Killargreany. Isn’t the next place on my list there?”

Diane found the sheet of paper in the map compartment and read it. “That’s right. Boy, that must have been right up the road from your family. Married, born, married, died, born, born, born, married, born …” She ticked off the highlighted entries in the sheaf of parish records. Keith took off the parking gear and headed toward Killargreany.