Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop

by Reginald Bakeley

  With the attentions of the ruddy-cheeked marauder now transported to wherever it is they roam when unconscious, I turned to my foraging partner and, drawing in a deep breath and straightening my posture, prepared to level a scathing education at the man, one outlining the precise dangers of any attempts to shake hands with a chittering leprechaun. But the stunned look on Tom's face as he stood up told me he already knew. He shook his head quickly, no doubt to disperse the effects of the leprechaun's ability to charm those unused to its malicious tendencies.

  “Is it dead?” my innocent companion asked.

  “Not in the slightest,” I replied. “Fantastically difficult creatures to kill, leprechauns. Can withstand all manner of injury and keep going. The stone in the face was just a lucky moment for me, and for you! Had that toothy tinkerer got hold of your arm with its jaws, we might well have had to amputate. Thankfully, they're always found alone, one of the ‘solitary fairies,’ taxonomically speaking, chiefly on account of their breath. Once the carcass is cleaned, though, leprechauns make famous eating, no trace of harmful bacteria or poison in the meat itself. I haven't got any sporting way of killing it, though. Didn't bring a firearm on this forage. But they often guard treasure of one sort or another, so we're going to have to move quickly and ascertain its holdings before it comes to.”

  Indeed, what came into focus now that we were free to exist without immediate threat from the red-bearded ruffian was a lush patch of the very truffle we'd been searching for, the ebony corvus truffles spread in great profusion among the season's first fallen leaves. I got to work immediately, as did Tom, and we filled to bursting the sack we'd brought with spongy wonders, dreaming of the meals Tom could prepare with them back at the restaurant. When the bag could hold no more, I tied it tight with a handkerchief and grabbed a few more of the mushrooms, stuffing them into my jacket pockets.

  Although I muttered that he might not want to do so, Tom picked up the leprechaun's tiny hammer and the filthy boot it had been working on, turning them over in his hands.

  “They're not much for cobblers,” I said. “Of course, hardly anyone has shoes worth mending anymore, but if you look closely, you'll see some characteristic elements of fey craftsmanship which, if not beautiful, are ingeniously practical. If they weren't so bloody delicious, it would be easier to see leprechauns as nearly manlike. Like some birds and primates, they use tools. But leprechauns take things a bit further, repurposing found objects into their work. I'll bet we can find some such effort put into this boot.” I stepped over to Tom and folded the boot open. “Do you see how it's used an old bottle cap here to make the grommet? It's that sort of inventiveness which makes leprechauns fascinating.”

  It was sloppy of me, getting distracted by the handiwork, almost as though the boot itself carried some taint of the leprechaun's charm. The quick crunching of leaves we heard at that moment might as well have been the sound of our dreams for a peaceful departure from the forest being wadded up and thrown into the rubbish bin. I spun round towards the direction of the noise and fell backwards as an emerald blur shot past me and collided at chest level with the ill-prepared Tom who, dropping the boot and falling to the ground, commenced a vigorous struggling under the manic attentions of the leprechaun.

  I snatched up the sackful of truffles. A voice in my head told me to run, but to do so would have left Tom to an indescribable fate. Many years in the kitchen had made him a stout man, and fit, but I could tell he was no match for the leprechaun with its wiry strength and hell-bent bloodlust.

  I had found myself upon a truly sticky wicket and was confronted with a choice: On the one hand, here I was set up for a good long while with a sack of mushrooms any gourmand would give his left arm for. On the other hand, there was poor Tom, flat on the ground and actually about to give up his left arm, without a single truffle to show for it.

  I wished to give careful deliberation to my next move. This decision required thought. Hands fumbled kerchief, and I loosed the mouth of the sack, yanking it open and peering down into its betruffled depths. As I moved the bag around, the corvus truffles rolled lazily over one another, performing languid motions worthy of a Moroccan belly dancer, so full and ripe they were, so eager to imbue my life with pleasure. The truffles' musky odour rose from the sack and filled the Bakeley nostrils. Theirs was an earthy scent which, once the mushrooms had been sliced and sautéed in butter, would grow and bloom into delight unmatched by any other. All this rapture was quite literally within my grasp, and as I imagined the promised dinner, I heard the truffles call my name. “Reginald…Reginald…”

  My reverie was short-lived, however, broken by a sharp kick against my shin. “Reginald!” shrieked the still-beleaguered Tom, prostrate at my feet, the fierce leprechaun gamely struggling at his arm, face, or wherever else it might be granted a toothy purchase. Looking over the edge of the sack at my friend's anguished face robbed me of the joy I'd been soaking in a moment earlier. “Reginald! You've got to help me! Please!”

  And as the clouds fogging my mind's eye parted, I realised Tom was right. Action must be taken at once if there was any hope for happiness to reign that day. With one last glance at the mushrooms, I upturned the bag, returning its contents to the earth, and in a single swift motion brought down the empty sack on the leprechaun, catching it up and closing the top, secured once more by the handkerchief. It hurt like the dickens for things to turn out this way, but the thought of losing Tom was what changed my mind. That man knows his way around a saucepan, and with him gone I would be high and dry, with no one to bring these impossibly mouth-watering mushrooms to their full potential.

  I reached down and helped him to his feet.

  “All right then?” I asked the rumpled gourmet as he brushed soil and leaves from his face, hair, coat, and trousers, wheezing heavily as he did. “You don't seem to have suffered any leprechaun bites. If you're feeling fit, then help me gather up as much of this scattered treasure as we can carry in our arms. We won't be able to haul off as many truffles as the sack held, I'm afraid, but…”

  Tom stood before me, still panting some and, despite his brushings, looking yet for all the world like John the Baptist, right down to that wild look in his eyes. I could tell he wasn't listening. Tom simply never did pick up a knack for conversation.

  I went on regardless.

  “We could bring home half a peck if we think resourcefully.” I reached for my collar in order to shrug off my coat and use it as a makeshift sack, but Tom's hand on my shoulder stopped me. His was a trembling hand, yet strong.

  “Reg.” There was a dead seriousness about his gaze. “I nearly died. That thing wasn't going to back down. It was going to kill me.” His stare was that of a desperate man, one who needs reassuring.

  “Yes, but we showed it who's on top, didn't we?” I gave the writhing sack a playful kick. “Our chittering little friend is snug and secure in that bag. He won't be able to get out until we want him to. He's a lively one, though. In fact, I believe we should carry him back to town and hang him up in the kitchen for later, then get three more sacks and return here and fill them with truffles.”

  “I forbid you to bring any of those evil mushrooms into my kitchen, Reginald Bakeley!” Tom was clearly still in the thrall of the adrenaline brought on by his little scuffle. “I don't want that leprechaun anywhere near me. I don't want another thing to do with that monster, nor its truffles!”

  I sensed that what this moment wanted was a bit of strategy. “Everything is fine, my friend,” I replied. “Let's leave all this here, retrace our steps, and get you home again.” Tom seemed to relax a bit at this, and as I walked him back up the hillside, I was careful to take several purposeful looks around.

  Within an hour I'd taken Tom home, secured him in his easy chair with blanket and tea cup, promised to check on him the next morning, and returned to the oak tree, pistol in hand and a half-dozen flour sacks I'd conscripted from Tom's kitchen thrown over my shoulder. The oak was still standing where I'd l
eft it, but nothing else about the scene remained the same. There was no trace of the captured leprechaun, nor signs of our tussle, nor even a single truffle in sight anywhere. I checked all round the tree and rummaged through piles of leaves, to no avail.

  Thoroughly confused and not a little upset at being robbed of both the truffles and the possibility of a roast leg-of-leprechaun (for in my experience, revenge is a dish best served piping hot, with a garnish), back to town I went. At the very least I could surprise Tom with the fistfuls of mushrooms I'd stashed away in our initial raid, show him that our nerve-wracking afternoon hadn't been without reward. But once hands entered pockets, they closed round small, hard masses of a most unexpected texture. Had the truffles dried out so quickly? I pulled the lumps out and looked at them. They were no longer mushrooms, to be sure, but seemed to be nuggets of purest gold.

  “Blast that cobbler!” I shouted, hoping that if the leprechaun could hear me he would at least give a sniggering laugh to indicate the direction in which I ought to point my pistol. But no such sound came in reply. The gold felt hard and cold in my hands, a derisive pay-off meant to keep me from biting into one of those tender, mysterious mushrooms.

  I briefly considered returning to the restaurant in Belfast and offering to buy their entire stockpile of the magical truffles, then thought better of it. To do so would only be admitting defeat. Maybe I could use the gold to bribe Tom into coming with me on another forage. But even a sackful of nuggets like those I held in my quivering hands wouldn't be enough to bring me the pleasure of cooking up my own pan of the leprechaun's truffles, if not the leprechaun itself.

  I turned in the direction of home, the gears and springs of my mind already churning away at a plot whereby I might one day get another crack at the treasure which had so cunningly eluded me.

  THE UNCANNY COMPANION

  The Faerie-Double • Face-Off • The Tolling of the Bell • Recollections of the Morning • The Road Home • Waylaid • The Sluagh • Staring into the Abyss • Remedy and Revival

  I REMEMBER THE MOMENT with crystal clarity. There, not four feet from the end of my nose, stood a fiendish apparition. It shuddered in and out of sight, listing some, as though struggling to remain upright on the deck of some storm-tossed ghost ship on a distant sea, a befogged vessel whose sails and mast were visible to him alone. Yet despite the ghastly haze which separated us, I was still able to catch squarely the look of disdain on the spirit's face. It was as though this ghost was mocking me for a lifetime of thought and action that he would have—had he been free to walk the sunlit world as I have, not being relegated as he was to Faerie's shadowy underworld—conducted somewhat differently.

  This half-tangible wraith meant to frighten me, but I wasn't about to take the bait. I mean, really, who among us has found themselves on a week-long holiday in the Scottish Highlands and not had to contend from time to time with such a spirit? To be startled the first time or two, rattled even, is natural. But the trick I've learned when facing off against the contemptuous apparition that is one's fetch, or faerie-double, is this: Show no weakness. Establish dominance from the outset, and maintain it.

  And so I brought myself to my full height, straightened my waistcoat, and shot the deceptively handsome stranger a grin that was at once knowing and withering. It was a technique I'd perfected at Eton, and I'd found opportunity to practise it now and again as an adult. The fetch stared back at me, its face twisted into a similar, ineffective sneer.

  “You think you've got me all sorted out, don't you?” I spat. “Well, let me tell you, I know a thing or two about fetches.” The fetch said nothing, although its mouth did move to ape my own speaking, and as I turned and began to pace, my own gaze not once breaking from that of the sinister spirit's, I saw, through the murky, mystic scrim separating our worlds, my double do the same. No matter, that. The fetch is an expert at mind games, but I was feeling confident.

  “I suppose you think I ought to be frightened,” I continued, “that perhaps I should go run and hide and cravenly tremble over the doom which you portend? What is it, foul doppelgänger, that you wish me to believe? That I'm about to lose a loved one? That I myself am in mortal danger this evening?” The fetch gesticulated in grave duplication of my own calculated flailings. “Let me tell you something which you apparently fail to understand, grim phantom. I am a man who has seen things, things which would terrify the strongest of men had they not, as I have, grown so dreadfully used to them! I've perforated giants four times your size with poisoned darts, distracting the monsters with riddles and card tricks until the venom took effect. I've sidestepped the deadly affections of the glaistig, that foul succubus of a fairy woman. Broke her heart in two, in fact. I've even eaten a plate of medium-rare nuckelavee— one I stalked myself—and enjoyed the taste! The Second Sight may not be what I would have chosen as the defining feature of my life, but possess it I do and cower from it and all the miserable horrors it brings before my eyes I do not! So just because you think you can frighten me with your leerings, your impish parody of my walk, and your foreshadowing by your very manifestation of some bad end which is to befall me, it doesn't mean that you can! I swear, fetch, I can hardly turn around without bumping into wights, ghouls, trolls, and bogeys, and now here you are, the most ridiculous of them all. You tire me, fetch. You bore me senseless. So go, unquiet wanderer! Fly! Disperse yourself into the clammy night air from which you've congealed! You'll get no satisfaction from your intended victim tonight!”

  I thought it would work, too, my being firm with the fetch. It was a tack which had served me well in many confrontations before. Yet there—coming into clearer focus, it seemed—still stood the double, a disgustingly smug look draped across its deceitful face and an attitude of absolute haughtiness shot through its frame (a smartly dressed one, too, I had to admit). This was the most defiant, the most self-assured, the most pompous specimen of bogey I had ever confronted. I'd just hit it square across the old physiognomy with my best verbal lunge, and it had taken the blow without so much as a flinch. That the fetch wasn't coming back at me with a bone-shaking assault of its own was even more disconcerting. What was it thinking, and what indeed did it want with me tonight?

  These thoughts and a dozen others scampered beneath the floorboards of my mind as I stepped towards the fetch, pinching my countenance into an impressive squint which I hoped would convey that I had discerned its true motive. As it had done for the entirety of our face-off, the double merely mimicked me, leaning forwards and glowering right back, until our equally well-proportioned noses were inches apart and I could feel its hot breath upon my face.

  But from this close vantage point something became clearer. There was a weariness in the double's eyes, a fatigue I'd begun to feel a degree of myself. Was this another of the fetch's tricks, or was I actually beginning to wear down this dastardly spirit's defences? I drew in a deep breath, mentally piecing together my next forensic jab.

  “Last call!” Derek the barman's shout burst through the door of the gentleman's water closet where I stood. Instinctively I spun towards the summons, forgetting for an instant the terror which now stood behind me. And when I turned again, all I found was my own reflection staring back at me from the mirror above the sink.

  Although I had been intensely curious to see what the fetch would do next, I must admit I felt some relief that the encounter had passed. With a swift adjustment of my crimson cravat and a pass of the fingers through the old Bakeley hair, I burst through the door in time to secure one last tipple from the good Derek. If a man can't feel safe and untroubled by his demons in the village public house, that bastion of civilisation and humanity, then where, I ask you, can he?

  The only double I wanted to contend with at that moment was amber in colour and served neat. It was the work of but a moment to procure the final whisky, and that of two more to bring it to lip and tilt back the tumbler. The golden fluid, more intrinsic to the national character of Scotland than wine is to France, or aquavit to
the Scandinavian countries, set about its work of restoring my composure in the wake of my contretemps with the fetch. I wondered how it was I felt so thoroughly flustered by the meeting. After all, I'd been drinking for hours.

  I bade Derek a good night and, amidst the din of the night's closing bell, pushed myself out the front door of The Lamprey's Arms and into the blackness of the Caledonian night. I must say, with the exception of its being haunted, the Lamprey had been as enjoyable a place to spend a long evening as I'd hoped it would be. It came enthusiastically recommended to me by my host, the estimable Professor Marcus White, a man of science and a long-time associate who had called me up to his manor home on the shores of Loch Ness. The professor wanted to share with me some recent findings regarding the mineral properties of turf samples taken from fairy mounds near Aberfoyle. We'd had a jolly enough week of it, I suppose, squinting at the soil, and in a few days I was scheduled to return home. That morning, Marcus had mentioned a call he'd received to attend an impromptu conference between a group of fellow fairy researchers and, after assuring me that the meeting would be “utterly dreary, not at all interesting to a man of action such as yourself,” hoped that I wouldn't mind having a full day on my own. I conceded that he was probably right and, having told him I was game for a long walk, took Marcus's suggestion that I visit the village of Felstane, situated about seven miles distant and known for its curious shops and convivial pub.

  We ate breakfast, and the professor walked with me to the front hall, where I pulled on my smartest rambling boots. On the table near the door stood a large crystal vase I'd been admiring since I'd arrived. Not the vase itself, actually, so much as its contents—hundreds of the professor's cat's-eye marbles, each of them the size of a horse chestnut. As I slipped my arms into my walking jacket's sleeves, I ventured a glance at the collection.