Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles

by Thomas Lennon

  If you are ever invited to a Tir Na Nog Hurling League match, DO NOT GO. IT IS NOT SAFE FOR HUMANS. And the unicorn-and-chips are way too expensive. You won’t just need protection from the fans but also from the weegees, who rig the league’s matches with their trademark corruption and control all of the parking, which is also outrageous.

  2 Credit card fraud is a relatively new crime for the wee folk, but they love it so much. You will know the wee folk have compromised your credit card if you’ve just “bought” a grand pedal harp on eBay that’s been mysteriously shipped not to your address but to a post office box in Tralee. One hundred percent of concert-quality harp sales on eBay are fraud, to leprechauns. An entire office of the Special Unit is devoted to fighting this.

  3 Was he taller than you’d expect? Yes, apparently the wax Liam Neeson is six feet, four inches tall, same as the real-life Liam Neeson. Did he smell good? No, he didn’t really smell like anything, just a slightly musty smell from the Jedi robes he’s wearing. So he’s wearing Jedi robes? Why isn’t he dressed as Michael Collins, from the famous film Michael Collins? Well, because they already HAVE a Michael Collins, so a Liam Neeson dressed as Michael Collins would be confusing.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A GIFT

  Around five P.M. I was lying in my bunk in the barracks, writing another postcard to Dame Judi Dench, trying to ignore the ghost of Brian Bean, who had perfected a new impression. “Tell the coppers you can’t catch him,” rapped Brian, his ghostly pants pulled just a bit down to show the top of his ghost underwear.

  “Oh, Brian. Wow, so great, that’s a new one you’ve got, then. Brilliant,” I said, never looking up but knowing full well from my peripheral vision that he was doing the rapper Lil Wayne.

  “YOUNG MONEY! YOUNG MONEY!” he continued, not reading the room at all and really going for it.

  “Has Log seen this new impression?” I interrupted, knowing that Log was working down in the astonishingly bad cafeteria, and that his going there would send him many floors away from me.

  “She has!” said Brian in his ghost voice. “In fact, it was her idea for me to come up here and show you! ‘I’M ADDICTED TO SUCCESS!’” And just like that, he was back in Lil Wayne mode.

  I’m not proud to say it, but there are many days that I wish Brian Bean had not died on Frolic Day. When he was alive, you could at least hear his footsteps approaching. In death, he managed to be everywhere, all the time. While still somewhat hilarious, he was mostly becoming a bit of a chore, and if I could sense him haunting nearby, I would change my route through the building to avoid having to be the test audience for one of his new bits. His Lil Wayne was amazing, no two ways about it, but luckily I was saved as Lily the wolfhound arrived, nuzzling my shoulder, signaling me with her humongous head to follow her.

  Lily’s appearance in the barracks was unusual, as the canines of the Special Unit live in and tend to socialize in their own dormitory called Wolfdew on the second floor of Collins House.

  Wolfdew has three bay windows that look out onto Lough Leane. The opposite wall is made up of gorgeous mahogany dens stacked up like bunks. Nobody knows where the name Wolfdew came from, but it’s likely an abbreviation of the phrase “Wolfhound Dormitory on Two.”

  There are peat fires that burn twenty-four hours a day in twin stone fireplaces that bookend Wolfdew. There is no cafeteria, as meals are on demand whenever the hounds choose them: smoking rich bowls of roasted lamb with a side of duck, or vice versa, followed by well water and ice creams that are suited to dogs’ taste, such as Old Chicken in a Paper Bag by the Train Tracks and Discarded Nachos Near Vagrant’s Shoe. Yes, they are very specific flavors, but a dog’s nose is one thousand times more advanced than ours, so I understand the need for specificity. I am reluctant to tell you that I have seen Lily devour two entire bowls of an ice cream called Neighbor’s Sweaty Butt After the Gym, which is an enormously popular flavor. They can’t keep it on the shelves.

  The wall opposite the bay windows has polished oak ramps that lead up to the dens, which are dim and cozy. Each den is lined with sheepskin throws and knit blankets made from the softest wools of the Aran Islands. The name of every wolfhound that has lived in a particular den hangs in order on a brass chain above it, ending with the current resident. Lily’s den, for example, starts with a wolfhound named Maude and links down many names to Lily. (Maude was Lily’s great-great-grandmother, I would find out, as hounding for the Special Unit is a skill handed down in families.)

  Wolfdew is such a cozy place that I half joked with Sergeant O’Brien that I would want to be transferred there out of the human barracks, and she laughed so hard that she pooped some pellets out—she was in her rabbit form at the time, and this can be uncontrollable. Another great lesson Captain de Valera taught me about the faerie folk: Don’t judge.

  Lily nudged me, and I buttoned my jumpsuit and grabbed my shillelagh, and we trotted down the many flights of stairs to meet Captain de Valera at the porte cochere.

  The captain’s mismatched eyes were fixed on the fading sky above, and she seemed distressed.

  “Except for Tin Whistle, at which you are a disaster, you’ve done well, Cadet. I had a feeling you would. This is for you, Boyle,” she said, tossing me a long package wrapped in brown butcher’s paper.

  I unwrapped the paper to find a glistening oak-root shillelagh of the first class. It was of a medium thickness, thirty inches long, and with a powerful claw at the head that was carved to look like a small fist. The entire stick clocked in at over seven pounds. I know that detail because I still carry this shillelagh today, and I think my right arm has grown a bit stronger than my left from the carrying of it.

  I stood there for a moment, unable to speak, as I was so moved by the gift, which is rare, because I usually blurt out stupid things when I am nervous, and I could have said something ridiculous like “Wowsers!” or “No way!”

  Luckily, “Thank you, Captain de Valera” is what I finally blurted out.

  “Don’t thank me,” said the captain. “Your old one is rubbish, and I need you at your best tonight. Reports of a harpy in County Wexford.”

  With that, she took away my training shillelagh and snapped it in two with remarkable ease, tossing the pieces into a trash can.

  I wish I had said a bit more to her right then. Maybe something about how she had changed my life by picking me for the Special Unit. Or perhaps something about how she had become the mentor that I hadn’t had since Captain Fearnley. Or I should have said some bit about how she was a much better influence on me than Dolores, or just some stupid thing to tell her how much she meant to me. Not that I . . . loved her? No. That would be silly. But I didn’t say anything. Most likely because I held her in such esteem. I just said, “Thank you, Captain de Valera,” and left it at that. I would regret this for a long time.

  I gave my new shillelagh a few practice swings, until I could feel a glare from Captain de Valera’s eyes, indicating that I should follow her.

  “Come, Boyle,” she said. “We could be in for a long night.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A HARPY IN COUNTY WEXFORD

  Captain de Valera gestured out toward the field that runs from the porte cochere all the way down to Lough Leane. I could see nothing particularly out of the ordinary because I was adjusting to my new glasses, which had earlier in the day prompted Dermot Lally to say, “Check out Little Rick, he’s so smart now!” Ah well.

  Down below there was a slight ripple upon the lake and a bit of mist rolling by in the moonlight. The pungent smell of decomposing lakeweed blew toward us and helped to wake me up a bit, as I had barely slept at all that day. Most of my sleep shift was spent in a nightmare, where I had to fight Yogi Hansra on the middle part of the Eiffel Tower with only the kind of tiny spoon they let you use to taste gelato. Turns out that this dream—induced with help from Doctor Boiko—was actually her very, very surprise final exam. This was unexpected, and having known the yogi for a bit, I should have expected i
t.

  “Don’t ask them any questions, and certainly don’t say what year it is, as it will upset them,” whispered the captain as we crossed the field, our feet mushing in the sod.

  Lily growled at something that I could not see yet.

  I tested my new shillelagh, uncertain whom, or what, I was about to meet.

  I kept my eyes locked on my feet, and I saw that the mush was soaking my cadet boots all the way through. I knew that I would have to dry them by the potbelly stove when I returned, as if this were something to worry about. My next thought was that if I were to leave my boots by the stove, Log would definitely steal them, as she was raised like that and doesn’t know any better.

  The captain had stopped moving up ahead of me. The lights of Collins House were fading behind us. I could hear the gentle lapping of Lough Leane on its shoreline.

  I turned and took a glance back toward the barracks, but as there are no windows up there, I could only see the light from the windows of Wolfdew, which glowed like a sleepy giant. I wished I could be in there, curled up in Lily’s den, watching her eat a bowl of Macaroni and Dead Bird Found Near Discarded Man’s Swimsuit.

  The House itself was starting to fade, as nobody was singing the classified song with the high and tricky middle part to it. A moment later it was just a picnic table again.

  Portions of this next passage are classified, so I will tell it as best I can, without compromising my colleagues in the Special Unit, or the faerie folk.

  POLITE WARNING!

  Portions of this next bit have been edited, as they are still very much classified.

  All the best,

  Finbar Dowd

  Deputy Commissioner

  Special Unit of Tir Na Nog

  “Wexford is an epic drive,” said the captain. “We don’t have that sort of time. We have an arrangement to be transported by our faerie allies, per the 1975 accord. Provided that the travel never be for personal or leisure purposes. So brace yourself, and keep your receipts.”

  “Right, sure.” I nodded, shivering. The captain put one hand over my mouth as her other one spun me to face three shining, translucent sylphs.

  She covered my mouth so I would not scream out loud and embarrass everybody. This was a good move, as the record-breaking shriek I made did not get very far past her glove.

  You may know that a sylph is a flying spirit common to Ireland. True. But the reality is a touch more complicated. There are oodles of flying faeries in Tir Na Nog and the human Republic of Ireland. (There is an entire guide book called Flying Faeries of the Emerald Isle and How to Kill Them available in the S&W department at Collins House and the Joy Vaults gift shop for seventy-five euros hardcover or fifty cents in paperback.)

  Some of the flying faeries in Ireland are actually Canadian faeries that drifted here, as very light faeries are subject to the Gulf Stream winds, which blow right across the Atlantic Ocean. True story: Moments before the R.M.S. Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic in 1912, Captain Edward Smith had just telegraphed the rest of the North Star Line, saying, “Holy cow, so many faeries floating by me right now. Wow, so neat! Hang on, funny sound downstairs . . . back in two shakes.”

  There are hundreds of types of airborne faeries, including three kinds that do not mean any harm to humans. Right now, only the sylph concerns us. A sylph is more than just a flying faerie—a sylph is the ghost of a faerie.

  Sylphs combine the magical powers of the wee folk with the enhanced powers of the dead. When a faerie dies—which takes millennia, at least—some of them go to the place beyond the northern mountains in Tir Na Nog, and some get stuck behind in the human Republic and become sylphs. Sylphs generally look like the undead version of what they were in life except that you can see right through them, as they have become a collection of electrons. All humans and faeries are basically electrical creatures, so when they die, they leave behind clouds of electromagnetic energy. Ireland is packed with ghosts because the climate is so moist, and water conducts electricity.

  You might be wondering, is it fun to get flown around by a sylph? No. Not a bit. Have you ever been to a family reunion, and some aunt who smells like soup and who you haven’t seen in ages hugs you too hard because she thinks you’re adorable and she hasn’t seen you in ages? That’s what it feels like when a sylph wraps itself around you, except that the thing that they’re hugging is your central nervous system. No person who’s ever been flown by a sylph has done it without wetting their pants a little bit.

  I am not an exception to that rule, because there are no exceptions.

  This first time felt like I was on a scary carnival ride, but the operator could not hear my cries to let me off because he had been murdered. Yes, murdered. This fictional detail to my simile is unnecessary, except that it adds to the horror of the picture I am trying to paint.

  It seems I yelled, “Makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop” on the entire twenty-eight-second ride to Wexford. I know you’re thinking, “Ronan Boyle—twenty-eight seconds is not that long, grow some backbone,” but at the time my backbone was lit up like the marquee of the Opera Supreme Magnifico, and dry underwear was many hours in my future.

  Thirty seconds later, we had been shivering on the coast of Wexford for about two seconds. A thunderstorm was raging, and I shuddered from the pelting on my face while wishing for the fillings in my teeth to cool down, as they had grown very hot from the sylph trip.

  I put a note in the mind catalog to bring fresh underwear next time this happens. Lily was rolling on her back in the rocks, howling like a werewolf. Wolfhounds do not like to travel via sylph because of the high-pitched noise that the electricity makes to their sensitive ears, and the screaming of any terrified humans who are traveling with them can also be quite annoying.

  Captain de Valera was calmer than I was. Her jet-black hair had fallen out of its usual bun, as her metal hair clip had melted on the trip. (Some metal items cannot travel by sylph.) She shook her head and let her hair fall over her shoulders. It was longer than I expected, as I had only ever seen it pinned up. Her badge had not evaporated, but it was glowing bright blue with the residual electricity, as were her flasks and buckles.

  The captain paid the sylphs with three little bags of tobacco. This was purely a symbolic gesture, as they had no way to use it. They vaporized into the mist, leaving us on the beach that was comprised of approximately a zillion small stones. No Irish beach is ever what you think a “beach” is in your mind’s eye, and diving for a volleyball on many of them could be fatal.

  An old lighthouse towered over us. This building, called Hook Lighthouse, is somewhat famous. Seems it’s been operating on this spot for about eight hundred years.

  Two garda with badges from the nearby town of Waterford ran up to us in quite a state. They were the ones who had called in the harpy. Both officers were named Danny by sheer coincidence. They had seen the harpy, and this fact was corroborated by their faces, which were green and horror-stricken, the blood drained out of them. They had multiple bites on their hands and faces, as harpies attack from above, and there’s little one can do to fight them off without a strong shillelagh. While harpy bites don’t hurt all that much, it’s the side effect of the bites that is a serious concern.

  Most faerie folk have the right to travel back and forth from Tir Na Nog without a visa. Not harpies. Harpies are heavily restricted. This policy dates back to 1906, when a medical assistant named Marguerite McSheehy at Trinity College Dublin completed a study of the effects of harpy bites on the human bloodstream.

  A harpy looks like a massive crow with the face of a human who unfortunately has the face of a dried-up crab apple. A harpy’s wingspan can grow to eleven feet across, greater than a California condor’s. Their feet are strong enough to catch and carry a leprechaun or a small human. By day they hang upside down in nests that are made from the stolen stuffed animals of happy human children.

  Not too long ago, all of the Irish fishing villages were worried sick over the c
alendar change that would happen on New Year’s Day, March 21, 999. At midnight, they would switch over to AD 1000, and many folks wondered if their sundials would still work, or perhaps the moon might explode, ruining the tides and subsequently killing all the fish. This was obviously a bunch of blarney, but once a mob mentality sets in, it’s hard to convince people of anything other than what they want to think.

  A fisherman and his wife lived in the tiny hamlet of Tramore, which today is a slightly larger tiny hamlet. At the height of the calendar hysteria, the fisherman caught a magical salmon, almost two hundred pounds in size. The salmon sang with a magnificent voice and offered him a deal if only he would put him back in the sea. (Even today, humans making magical pacts with singing fish account for thirty percent of the workload of the Special Unit.)

  Here was the bargain the singing salmon offered: If the fishermen of Tramore were to bring one human child every New Year’s Day as a sacrifice, the salmon would make sure their nets were full of delicious fish all year long, in perpetuity. Forever and ever.

  The fisherman went home and tried to find a local child who was disliked enough to feed to a large fish with an off-the-charts singing voice. When the local kids heard about the offer, the nasty ones fled, and the sweet ones got their acts together. At the time, Tramore had a pretty nice bunch of kids, and nobody was willing to part with even one of them, let alone a new one every March 21.