The Boggart and the Monster

by Susan Cooper

The parka dropped instantly to the ground and lay in a drooping heap. Emily ran to it and stood looking around the room, head up, talking to the air.

  “Boggart, it’s us, do you remember? We’ve come back! I told you our great-grandmother was a MacDevon, I told you we’d come back!”

  “Hi, Boggart,” Jessup said softly. “Greetings from Canada. We missed you.”

  The lights in the room flickered, but this time did not go out; they grew dim, leaving great caverns of shadow between bookcases and behind armchairs. In one of these patches of dark, they saw a shape begin to grow, glimmering faintly. It had arms, legs, body and head, but it was no recognizable form; tall, thin and ethereal, it hung motionless in the air, a creature of shifting light, nameless, bewitching. Not one of them, afterward, could describe it; they were conscious only of a beauty that caught the breath, of colors shimmering and fading and deepening, as the Northern Lights wonderfully pattern the sky over northern lands.

  They gazed in awe at the iridescent, gleaming form, until gradually it began to fade, and while its last echo of shape and color hung in the air they heard a voice, husky, creaky, like an instrument long untuned.

  “Tha mo chridhe maille ruibh,” it said. “Tha mo chridhe maille ruibh.”

  Then there was silence, and the magic was gone, and the lights in the library rose to their normal brightness.

  Emily said, whispering, “What did he say?”

  “It’s the Gaelic, the line that was at the end of Mr. MacDevon’s letter,” Tommy said. “It means, My heart is with you.”

  * * *

  EMILY LEANED AGAINST the bathroom doorframe, hugging her dressing gown around her. “Wasn’t that marvelous?” she said, still dazed. “Wasn’t he just beautiful?” Jessup came out of the bathroom in his pajamas, wiping toothpaste off his chin. “It must be the same as the Aurora Borealis,” he said, preoccupied. “Charged particles. Though not in the stratosphere of course. I wish he could explain it to me.”

  Emily looked at him reproachfully. “Jess,” she said.

  Jessup grinned. “I know,” he said. “I know. No explaining. Just magic.”

  THREE THE FOUR OF THEM sat quietly in Mr. Maconochie’s sixteen-foot outboard dinghy, bobbing at anchor on the heaving grey-green water of Loch Linnhe. A dozen yards away, waves rose and fell against a bank of glistening seaweed-draped rocks. It was a calm day, with puffs of cloud drifting over a blue sky, but always under these waters lay the echoing rhythm of the swells that rolled toward Appin, around the island of Mull, from the North Atlantic.

  Tommy, Emily, Jessup and Mr. Maconochie were gazing at the rocks, waiting. The rocks were called the Seal Rocks, and on and around them the grey Atlantic seals loved to roll and lie when the days were calm. Scotland, like Ireland and Wales, is full of legends about the seal folk, the selkies, who take on the shape sometimes of a human being and sometimes of a seal, and as a result, through generations of tradition, some families have been said to have the blood of seals mixed with the human blood in their veins. The MacDevon family was one of these. And Emily and Jessup belonged to that family, through their father’s grandmother, the sister of the last MacDevon, who had emigrated from Scotland to Canada. Emily had never forgotten this; nor had she forgotten the day two years before when on these rocks two seals had surfaced, to gaze at her and at Jessup. “They came up to see you,” Tommy had said wonderingly. “I have never known them come so fast, for anyone but Mr. MacDevon.”

  But no seals emerged today, to roll themselves up onto the kelp-swathed rock, and there was nothing to see, not even for Mr. Maconochie, who sat expectantly holding binoculars, with his long legs bent and his elbows propped on his knees.

  “I did see them in the spring,” he said hopefully. “Tommy brought me. There was one splendid great fat fellow with barnacles all over his sides.”

  Emily looked at the empty rocks and found disappointment filling her like an ache; she had felt that the seals, almost as much as the Boggart, were old friends. She said, “Maybe it’s just the wrong time of day for —”

  Then she stopped. “Oh!” she said, entranced.

  Beside the boat, not a yard from where she sat, a shining dark head had emerged, and was gazing at her out of huge long-lashed eyes; a doglike, whiskered head, gleaming, dripping water. It contemplated her for a long moment, then vanished into a wave, and on the other side of the boat Jessup let out a happy yelp as another seal surfaced and stared at him. Then the first was back, and a third, and together the three creatures played around the boat, rising and diving and rolling over in the water, while the children and Mr. Maconochie watched in delight.

  Mr. Maconochie said softly, “It’s the three daughters of the King of the Sea, come to drop their skins and swim in human form.”

  “What?” Jessup said.

  “Not really,” said Mr. Maconochie. “Just an old story.”

  The first seal surfaced again near Emily, splashing her with water, and as she wiped the spray out of her eyes, laughing, she found a double white cockle shell in her lap.

  “Look!” she said to Tommy, still laughing. “He gave me a present!”

  She showed him the shell, which was oddly heavy when she picked it up; it seemed to have rock inside it, instead of a cockle. Tommy peered at it.

  “That’s a fossil shell,” he said. “They’re special. Did it really come from the seal?”

  “It must have done,” Emily said.

  Tommy gave her an odd, intent look. “Put it in your pocket, and keep it safe,” he said.

  “Okay,” Emily said, and she dutifully put the shell into a pocket of her parka and zipped the pocket shut. The three seals rollicked away through the waves toward the rock, their heads rising and falling, gleaming in the sunlight.

  Tommy said, “The Boggart comes to swim with them sometimes. He takes on the shape of a seal, and plays tricks on them.”

  Jessup squinted at the seals. One of them was hoisting himself up onto the rock, rolling sideways, suddenly bulky and clumsy when out of the sea. He said, “D’you think one of those is the Boggart?”

  Tommy shook his head. “You can tell when it’s him. Like a good copy, but not quite the real thing. You’ll see, soon enough, if the weather holds.”

  As unexpectedly as they had come, the seals disappeared into the sea. Emily watched them go, through Mr. Maconochie’s binoculars. “D’you think it’s really true we’re related to them?” she said.

  “You’re a lot slimmer,” said Mr. Maconochie.

  “And fewer whiskers,” Tommy said. He dodged quickly, grinning, as she splashed him.

  Mr. Maconochie said, “If the weather does hold — d’you remember I mentioned camping?”

  “Yes!” said Jessup promptly.

  “Real camping?” said Emily. “With tents and backpacks and all?”

  Tommy shook his head. “Mr. Mac is a softie camper,” he said. “The gear all gets carried in the car, and the car’s right there where you pitch your tent.”

  Mr. Maconochie said with dignity, “I am an aging man. And who was it chose to sleep inside the car, last time?”

  “One night in a tent with the dreaded great-nephews was enough,” Tommy said. “A frog in my sleeping bag and stones in my sneakers. They’re worse than the Boggart.” He started the outboard motor. “Pull up the anchor, Jessup.”

  Emily settled herself contentedly in the bow. “Can we really go camping? Where shall we go?”

  “Almost anywhere,” said Mr. Maconochie. “I just want to show you the Highlands. There’s more to Western Scotland than Castle Keep.”

  Jessup dropped the anchor clanking at their feet, and coiled wet line neatly beside it. “Could we go to Loch Ness? Is that far?”

  “Certainly we could,” said Mr. Maconochie. “Not far at all.”

  Tommy made a snorting sound, audible even over the chugging of the motor. “Loch Ness! You’re surely not thinking of the Monster?”

  Jessup frowned. “Why not?”

  “That’s al
l tourist rubbish,” Tommy said coldly. He nudged the throttle higher, and Jessup sat down suddenly as the boat began to pitch.

  “But there was this cool guy on the plane,” Jessup said, and all the way home he recited, with much incomprehensible scientific detail, the story of Harold Pindle and his robot submarine expedition. Tommy grunted, unimpressed, and slowed the boat gently down as they came close to Castle Keep’s rocky landing.

  “That’s a classic sound you made,” Jessup said. “You’ve done it twice now. It’s the Scornful Scottish Snort.”

  Tommy’s mouth twitched. “When we’re by Loch Ness you’ll hear another one called the Canny Caledonian Clink. It’s the sound of the local Scots collecting money from gullible American monster-hunters.”

  “I quite liked Harold,” Emily said mildly. “And he’s Canadian, thank you. He’s a professor at the University of British Columbia, and he and Jess talked computers halfway across the Atlantic.”

  “I bet you didn’t tell him about the Boggart,” Tommy said.

  “Of course not,” said Jessup. “He’s a scientist. They only believe in things they can see and check and measure. That’s what he wants to do to the plesiosaur. If it is a plesiosaur.”

  Mr. Maconochie stepped out of the dinghy with the bow line as Tommy nudged them up to the rock jetty of the castle. “It’s a beautiful loch anyway. Let’s dig out the camping gear and you can choose your tents.”

  So, up in one of the small dark upper rooms of the castle that were used only for storage, they burrowed in numbers of large, exciting boxes ordered by Mr. Maconochie by mail from specialized camping stores. There were tents and sleeping bags, anoraks and boots, packets of improbable freeze-dried food, even shiny blankets of the kind used by astronauts.

  “He’s like a little kid with those camping catalogs,” Tommy told them, pulling out a tent frame so light he could hold it with one finger. “My mum says we should go through his mail and hide them from him. He buys something every month. There’s enough stuff up here for an Everest expedition.”

  “It’s the modern materials,” Mr. Maconochie said unrepentantly. “They’re so amazing, I can never resist them. Look at this!” He pressed lightly on the fragile-looking tent frame, and it sprang open into the inverted bowl shape of a little igloo, bright orange, floor and roof all in one piece, with zippered screens and flaps for windows and doors.

  “Look at it! No more hammering tent pegs in the rain, nothing but a quick zip.” He zipped up the door-piece and all the windows, and beamed at them.

  Unfortunately he had also zipped up the Boggart, whose limitless curiosity had sent him flittering happily after them into the storage room. Caught in the little tent, he danced about in momentary confusion, and the tent rose into the air like an orange mushroom cap, bouncing off ceiling and walls. The children and Mr. Maconochie were startled only for the first moment; then they grinned, and turned their attention to dodging. “It’s a tent, Boggart, not a basketball!” Jessup called cheerfully, ducking as the tent zoomed past his head.

  Inside the tent, the Boggart found a gap at the very end of a zipper, and poured himself out through it like water, invisible, greatly relieved. The tent subsided to the floor, and he eyed it resentfully, vowing never to go near anything like it again.

  Tommy gingerly unzipped the orange door, and they all waited cautiously to see what the Boggart might do when he came out. But the Boggart was by then already down in the kitchen, sulking a little, sniffing to find out what might be available for supper.

  * * *

  EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED afterward could have been traced, perhaps, to Mr. Maconochie’s whisky. They had eaten their supper and washed the dishes; Tommy had gone home in his little puttering boat, and now Emily and Jessup sat with Mr. Maconochie beside the fire in the living room, talking about the Boggart’s escapades in Toronto two years before. Mr. Maconochie loved hearing about the Boggart. Now that he had discovered the existence of boggarts in general, he felt he had wandered into an entirely different world, whose details he had to learn as a child learns to walk and talk. He was proud of one personal achievement: he had already taught the Boggart to love French fries, known to him and everyone else in the British Isles as chips.

  When he retired from the law and moved to Castle Keep, Mr. Maconochie, who in all his life had hardly even boiled an egg, had deliberately set out to learn how to cook. After a long talk with his housekeeper, an elderly, stout Scotswoman who was now herself retiring to live with her niece in Aberdeen, he had persuaded the startled lady to give him lessons in basic cooking. A month later he had a shopping spree in an Edinburgh store frequented mainly by professional chefs, and bought a lifetime supply of shiny pots and pans and ladles and knives. He also accumulated a whole shelf full of cookbooks, which he now read regularly for fun, as most adults read thrillers.

  He learned to cook a wide range of dishes, especially those dear to his great-nephews, and he gained six pounds. He was particularly fond of the dinner he had cooked this evening for Emily, Jessup and Tommy: country-style lamb-burgers, made with ground lamb deliciously laced with finely-chopped sautéed onion, green pepper and parsley, accompanied by green peas, with potatoes cut into chips and deep-fried to a wonderful crispness.

  Emily and Jessup watched in awe as Mr. Maconochie, wrapped in a white chef’s apron, whisked his wire basket of sizzling chips out of the deep fat at precisely the right moment. Their mother, Maggie, had attempted deep-frying only once in recorded history, and they had had to call the fire department because the fat had gone up in flames and set fire to the kitchen curtains.

  The Boggart hovered near the table as they ate, and stole chips from each plate in turn with his long invisible fingers. He chewed with lingering pleasure and tried not to burp, and the children tried not to notice whenever a particularly long and delectable chip on one of their plates disappeared. They had experimented with giving the Boggart a plate of his own, but seldom with success. Except on special occasions, he much preferred the trickery of stealing.

  Sitting companionably now with them in the living room, curled up in a Japanese cloisonné bowl inherited from Mr. Maconochie’s sea-captain grandfather, he drifted in and out of sleep as Jessup regaled Mr. Maconochie with the details of the day the Boggart had put himself into the control system of the traffic lights of Toronto, turning the red lights to blue and causing a variety of traffic accidents. Mr. Maconochie shook his head in concern, and got up to pour himself his evening dram: two fingers’ breadth of a good single malt whisky in a graceful round glass.

  “Did he understand what he was about?” he asked.

  “Oh no,” Emily said. “He was just like a kid having fun. I don’t think he has a clue of the danger in some of the tricks he plays.”

  The Boggart paid no attention. All his attention now was on Mr. Maconochie’s whisky. A wee dram would be just the thing to set nicely on the fried potatoes, in which perhaps he had overindulged. He flitted across to the table beside Mr. Maconochie’s chair, and the next time Mr. Maconochie raised his glass to his lips he found half the whisky had gone.

  And so it was Mr. Maconochie’s good malt whisky that sent the Boggart flittering a little erratically out of the living room in search of a comfortable bed. Heading for the library, where he rested habitually in a gap on a high shelf, he found himself hovering instead over the pile of camping equipment brought down from the third floor, waiting in the corridor to be loaded the next day into boat and then car.

  The Boggart sank downward and landed on a rolled-up blanket, into which he gratefully burrowed and curled up, and fell asleep.

  * * *

  SMALL WAVES LAPPED against the stony grey beach of Port Appin, with a gentle rhythmic rasping sound. Emily and Mr. Maconochie left Tommy and Jessup loading bundles from the boat into the Range Rover, and took William across the little graveled parking area to the Camerons’ general store.

  Tommy’s mother came smiling to the door to meet them, smoothing her already smo
oth and spotless apron, and William bounded toward her, waving his tail and barking joyfully. Though he loved his owner, he was never sorry to be left with the Camerons when Mr. Maconochie went away. He knew it would mean long walks on moors and beaches, instead of the limited space of Castle Keep’s island — not to mention the occasional surreptitious treat from the dinner plate of Tommy’s father, Angus Cameron, who could never resist a plaintive whine and a hopeful look from large soulful brown eyes.

  “Here he is, Mrs. Cameron,” said Mr. Maconochie, handing her the basket with William’s leash, bowl and favorite blanket. “Seven days’ exchange, not very fair -I take away your useful son and leave you my loving but useless dog.”

  “Not useless at all,” said Mrs. Cameron, rubbing William’s feathery golden ears. “He makes sure Angus gets some exercise, instead of sitting in the boat or the car all day.”

  Angus Cameron came out of his storage shed, carrying a large untidy bundle. “I heard that,” he said amiably.

  Emily gazed at him with interest: he was an exact grown-up version of Tommy, though the curly dark hair had retreated quite a long way up his head. She had never had much contact with Mr. Cameron, a quiet, rather absentminded man who always seemed to be on his way to or from somewhere else. He was a freelance journalist who wrote stories about the Highlands of Scotland for two or three major British newspapers; it was Mrs. Cameron who very efficiently sold groceries, stamps and almost anything else anyone could need at the village store.

  William bounded at Mr. Cameron in happy greeting, and he staggered and put down his bundle. Tommy came from behind Emily and picked it up. “Is this the sleeping bag? Thanks, Dad.”

  “We bought it for him when we thought he was going to be a Boy Scout,” said Mr. Cameron to Emily, fondling William’s eager head. “But he only lasted two weeks.”

  “All the way to Ballachulish to learn to tie knots,” said Tommy disdainfully. “You taught me all those knots when I was five years old.”

  “Well, make sure you tie all the right knots for Mr. Mac,” said his mother. “And ring us up a time or two to show you’re still breathing. Here’s your things.” She handed him a bulging backpack, and planted a swift farewell kiss on his cheek before he had a chance to object.