The Tirnano - Book 1 'FINN'

by Peter Emmerson

  “Winn, Winn, get Macy!” Emma shrieked jumping up and down, flapping her arms in a hysterical imitation of a scrawny, red-headed, overgrown bird.

  “Yeah, get Macy, get Macy!” echoed Andrew.

  “Why, what do you need Macy for?”

  “Be-because,” Emma panted, finally ceasing the flapping and hopping and coming to a halt. “We seen something in the woods, Andrew and me.”

  “Fudge saw it too!” chimed in her brother. “Look, see?”

  Winn’s level brown eyes tracked her younger sibling’s lead, following his finger to the shape of their chocolate Labrador, Fudge, crouched low on her belly in the tall weeds framing what used to be the garden. Spine stiff, teeth bared, the Lab kept a close eye on something in the tree line. Winn squinted, but couldn’t tell what it was, or if anything was even there.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a-a-I dunno what it is,” Emma hollered back, “but it’s big and scary and mean looking, whatever it is. You gotta get Macy,” she finished up. “Tell her to bring the gun.”

  “Yeah, yeah, big and scary and mean looking,” grumbled Wintergreen, shutting the window. I’m so sure. Like a rock would be big and mean and scary looking to two seven year olds with overactive imaginations. It’s probably just a deer the dumb dog’s growling at.

  Still, for the sake of peace in the household, she left her upstairs loft, slamming the door behind her, and tromped down the wooden steps calling, “Macy? Macy? Can you hear me? The twins are outside, yelling for you to bring the gun.”

  No reply.

  Frustration growing by the minute - I hadn’t even gotten to study the watercolour very close, and Sir Terrance was, like, totally cool - Winn swung off the bottom step and around the beam supporting the staircase, giving the living room a hasty scan for her oldest sibling. Macy was nowhere to be found, meaning she must be happily ensconced in the study... “Flirting with that idiot she calls a boyfriend,” muttered Winn.

  She didn’t like Chad very much. On his last visit he’d teased her about her new red-rimmed glasses, saying if she didn’t read so many trashy novels she wouldn’t have to look like Ol’ Four Eyes MacCallister, Fort Gibson High’s geeky science teacher. Wintergreen had bristled at that. Her novels weren’t trashy, and her red-rimmed glasses were fashionable; definitely not something Ol’ Four Eyes would wear. Since Chad had yet to be forgiven, the pleasure of interrupting Macy’s chat with the jerk was nearly enough to offset Winn’s annoyance at the twins’ disrupting her precious moments with Sir Terrance.

  “Hey Mace,” she whispered loudly, poking her head in the study door. “Get off the phone. Something real big and important is happening outside.”

  Swivelling about in the black desk chair, her petite blonde sister shook her head. I’m on the phone, she mouthed. Chad.

  “I know you’re on the phone,” Winn answered, trying-and doubtless failing-to hide her glee. “But the twins are kicking up a storm outside. And if you don’t want those two going into conniptions and calling Mom and Dad, you better get out there.”

  Macy sighed. “Just a minute, baby,” she cooed into the phone. Covering the receiver with one hand, she hissed, “What’s their problem? And why can’t you handle it?”

  Smirking, Wintergreen shrugged one shoulder. “Can’t.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  “Because,” she grinned, turning and sauntering away. “The twins said to bring a gun, and you’re the only one allowed to handle it. Remember?”

  ~

  Macy came, toting the gun, and clearly unhappy about the situation. Winn, following her big sister, heard Macy snap, “Why on earth did you two want me to bring the gun? For Pete’s sake, if it was just a snake all you had to do was get away from it. We can’t shoot every copperhead in the woods.”

  “It ain’t a snake, Macy,” Emma protested, lips trembling. Up close, even cynical Wintergreen could see the child’s face was pale, and that her emerald green eyes, usually glinting with mischievousness, were dark with worry. “It’s something else. Something big and mean and scary.”

  “Yeah, something - ”

  “Something big and mean and scary, okay,” Macy interrupted her brother, eyes scanning the tree line. “So where is it? What is it?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  Winn could tell her big sister was about to go over the edge. Macy proved it by rounding on the two seven year olds, gun held in a safety position, down and away from all humans present.

  “Look, do you two see this thing? It is not a toy! You don’t mess around with guns. You don’t even touch guns unless you need ‘em, got that? I was busy in the house, and you called me out here because of your wild imaginations and told me to bring a gun - well, that kind of stuff just isn’t going to fly, you hear me? I can’t come waltzing out here every time you think you see something -”

  “Macy -” Andrew tried to interrupt, but his big sister’s bout with word vomit was not to be assuaged.

  “Especially when you see something all the time. Like last week, when Emma saw the monster in her closet, and last night when -”

  “Macy!” Now Emma tried her turn, with as little luck as her twin.

  Winn, who’d been ignoring the whole tirade - familiar scene, played one too many times - had been watching Fudge, the chocolate Lab instead. Her keen, probing - even fanciful mind - was quick to note the dog had taken no notice of her and Macy’s advent, and even less notice of Macy’s fit. If anything, the Lab, focusing intently on the shifting shadows beneath the trees, was growing more and more intent. In fact, Wintergreen was not mistaken to think she heard the dog’s growl amp up a notch, even as the hair on the back of her neck rose. Winn’s eyes narrowed. The dog rose, along with its hair. Crawled forward a few paces. Stopped. Lowered herself. Raised - crawled - lowered.

  A chill crept down the teen’s spine. Clearly, the dog had seen something. Which meant chances were good the twins’ imaginations weren’t simply running away with them again ... as Macy continued to accuse and they kept right on denying. The approaching twilight played funny tricks of shadows and shapes, yet Wintergreen, drawn by the annoying, insistent urge inspiring her to know the unknown found herself being tugged forward, following the dog.

  “What is it, Fudgie girl?” she said quietly to the animal. “You see something there? What do you see?”

  No answer, except the Lab now rose up on all fours and began to bark. This proved enough to hush Macy’s fit. Attention fully arrested, eyes glued to the trees, Winn narrowed her eyes, staring intently and there...

  She gasped.

  “Winn? What is it?”

  “I - I don’t know.”

  She shook her head, rubbing her eyes once, twice, to make sure they weren’t playing tricks on her. Impossible! That grey shape, familiar and yet not, - it couldn’t be, could it? Surely it was just a coyote, perhaps a wolf or stray dog. That was what was setting the dog off - for the normally calm, complacent Lab was going wild now, lunging forward, stopping, growing, barking, and slavering ferociously by turns.

  “Winn?” Macy, edging up beside her, expertly flicked the safety on the pistol with a snap. “You see something?”

  “Don’t you?” She pointed. “Tell me my eyes aren’t playing tricks on me.”

  Macy, studying the scene, was silent for a long, tense moment. Winn turned wide eyes to her sister. Macy’s delicate features were grim, set in those determined lines that spelled trouble for any coyotes, copperheads, rattlers, water moccasins - or unruly twins - foolish enough to cross her path.

  “I see... I - I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like its looks. That thing isn’t natural. Step back, Winn.”

  Winn’s already widened eyes opened further. “Macy, you can’t -”

  “Step back, Winn!” Macy snapped. “With Mom and Dad gone, I’m the adult here. I’m the one who has to make the decisions. I have to protect us. So step back,” she ordered, “and you two get in the
house,” she threw over her shoulder at the twins. “They don’t need to see this,” she added quietly, almost to herself.

  Winn’s eyes swung back to the scene. Desperate, she ran a few steps ahead, ignoring the infallible, unbreakable rule ingrained since childhood - never, ever stand in front of a person holding a gun.

  “Wintergreen Evans, you get back here,” Macy hissed, careful to keep her voice low so as not to spook the creature. “I’m going to shoot that thing and...”

  Winn stopped. A final stare. Yes, she knew it! She was right - she hadn’t been mistaken. The...creature, was what she thought. It should be impossible but it wasn’t. So fairytales really do come true, her mind whispered. Triumphant, she swung back to her sister.

  “You can’t shoot it Macy,” she announced with a tone of happy finality.

  “And why not?”

  “Because,” the teen announced, eyes lit as if with a 4th of July punk, “I know what it is!”

  13.

  THAT PHONE CALL

  Bucksburn.

  Aberdeenshire.

  April 2011

  A shrill, obnoxious sound disrupted Jeanne’s pleasant sleep, and even pleasanter dreams.

  4:37, she thought grumpily, peeling her eyes half open. Why the devil is the clock going off at this hour? I don’t remember setting any alarm for 4:37.

  A moment was required for the truth to penetrate her sleep-dazed brain. No, she hadn’t set any alarm, nor was it an alarm going off at the unearthly hour of 4:37 rather; it was her mobile on the nightstand beside her bed.

  Unearthly, she thought with a wry chuckle, reaching for the phone. That’s a good one. What about this whole affair has been ‘earthly’ from the start? - Nothing, that’s what.

  Picking up the phone, and cradling it between shoulder and chin, she croaked a sleepy, “Hello?”

  “Mornin’ glory,” answered a decidedly chipper - and also decidedly male - voice at the line’s opposite end.

  “Tom,” Jeanne growled, slumping against the pillows. “Why am I not surprised that you’re calling me before five in the morning?”

  “Oh, did I wake you up?” her colleague inquired innocently.

  “Wake me up? Of course you woke me up! Don’t you know better than to call people before the sun’s even thought of waking up? Don’t you know - ?”

  “Jeanne,” Tom broke in seriously, cutting off her tirade.

  “What?” she snapped, not in a mood to be placated.

  Lucky for him, he knew the magic words. “Another one’s been found.”

  Dead silence. Silence for so long, in fact, that Tom had to prompt her. “Jeanne? You still there?”

  “Aye ... still here. Are you on a secure line?”

  “Of course.”

  “Okay,” she answered faintly. “Where, Tom? Where was it found?”

  “Little place across the ocean, back home in the States. Oklahoma. Ever heard of it?”

  “Just the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical,” she retorted rolling her eyes. “Of course I’ve heard of it. Buffalo, Cowboys and Indians, and oil, right?”

  Tom chuckled, provoking Jeanne’s insides to perform a funny flip. Settle down, girl, she remonstrated. It’s just the lack of sleep.

  “I wouldn’t say that to a full blood Okie, but yeah, that’s pretty much all there is.”

  “Okie?”

  “Short for Oklahoman; that’s what they call themselves. Now look, Jeanne,” he continued, leaving the explanation brief, “interestingly enough, our newest guest was found by some friends of mine. Or, rather, by their kids. Dr. Sam Evans and his wife Michelle, also a doctor, are archaeologists working with the University of Oklahoma - great football team, by the way. Their kids live outside a tiny little town called Fort Gibson; the oldest, Macy, looks after the brood while Mom and Dad are off on assignment.

  “Seems the twins, Emma and Andrew, saw something mysterious in the woods and raised cane until their older sisters came out to look. It was then that Winn, - middle child, sixteen - recognized the creature. Winn’s always been into fantasy and fairytales - shares some of Paul’s same interests, actually - and she labelled the creature a troll, or Boggart, as Paul likes to call them. According to Michelle, who phoned me this morning from their dig somewhere in Canada, Winn coaxed the creature out with food. Who knows how long it had been in hiding, but it was thin and apparently starving. The kids called their parents first off, who, after they were convinced, told them to keep the whole matter hushed up until someone trustworthy could get down there to check the situation out.”

  “So they called you?”

  “So they called me,” Tom concurred.

  “Why you? You’re an anthropologist, not an archaeologist,” Jeanne pointed out, still trying to wrap her brain around not only the excitement of yet another Boggart, but the realization that one had been found across the pond, and by a teenage girl who recognized it from some fantasy novel she’d been reading.

  Again, Tom laughed. For four-something-in-the-morning, the man was in an exasperatingly cheerful frame of mind.

  “Believe it or not, the two aren’t incompatible. We’ve worked together off and on through the years, mainly in digs in the South American region. While I explore the living cultures, they uncover secrets of the past.”

  “Ah. So...they call you, and then what?”

  “And then I’m flying out in less than hour. Catching the red-eye down to London. Then Heathrow to the States and onward to Oklahoma, check out the little guy. Hopefully we can get them all together. I’m interested to see how this newest visitor will react to meeting some kinfolk from across the big water. Aren’t you?”

  “Well, of - of course,” she stammered. “But where is it now? I mean, isn’t the U.S. government stepping in? Aren’t…”

  “Naturally, they would if they knew,” Tom drawled, unconcerned, “but they don’t. Everything’s real hush-hush for now. At present, the Boggart is staying in the Evans’ barn. Winn, apparently, has made friends with it. She’s been the creature’s main caregiver for a day and half. According to Michelle, she’s real friendly with it.”

  Tom’s voice softened. “That’s my girl. Winn has such a bright, inquiring mind. She’s not like other teen girls, obsessed with boys and makeup and shoes and I-phones and the latest Hollywood scandal. This world has never been enough for her. She wants something more - why she’s always reading fantasy and fairytales I guess. Finding this Boggart must be making all her dreams come true.”

  Propped against the pillows, Jeanne caught the change in Tom’s voice and found herself smiling. Clearly, he was not only on good terms with the parents but their kids, too. His fondness for the teen was unmistakable.

  He’d make a good dad... she found herself thinking with a dreamy smile. Whoa, where’d that come from? Are you an idiot? Clearly, yes. Thank the merciful heavens the American is no mind reader.

  “Anyway,” Tom went on, bringing himself back on track, “like I say, I’m going to see if I can’t get our friend over here before news leaks. I discussed it all with Michelle and she agreed it’d be for the best. Can you pave the way from this end - make all the necessary arrangements for someone to meet us at the airport, provide transportation back to the centre, and all the rest?”

  “Of course. When will you be arriving?”

  Tom told her the projected date.

  “You’ve got my mobile number, right? So you can keep in touch while you’re gone?”

  “Now Jeanne, if you wanted me to call you, you could have just said so. I’d have done it anyway; didn’t need to take a trip across the ocean for an excuse.”

  Jeanne felt her face go hot. “That isn’t what I meant, you idiot!” she snapped.

  “I only meant -”

  “I know, I know,” her colleague broke in, voice teasing, heavy and warm. “I’m just bugging you. You’re so much fun to tease.”

  To that, she had nothing to say. It wasn’t fair! Why did he get to call her at this time of morning
when he was already wide awake and coffee-d up, drop a major bombshell, and then flirt when I’m still in the process of waking up?

  “Jeanne,” Tom began hesitantly, after a moment’s awkward pause, “when all this over...do you think that maybe you and I ...”

  “Look, Dr. Pinkerton.” Infusing her voice with authority and briskness, Jeanne took back command of the situation, layering the stirrings of her heart beneath a facade of professionalism. “Don’t think we have time for this discussion at the moment, do you? Didn’t you say you were flying out in less than an hour? Maybe you’d better get going,” she continued, not pausing for an answer. “Getting through security takes time these days, and we don’t want you to miss your flight.”