The Boggart Fights Back

by Susan Cooper

  Then another truck, carrying two more bulldozers.

  Then a third, loaded with a gigantic metallic object that was the shape of a truck-size shipping container, but had a door in its middle with two small windows on either side. There was already a label fixed over the door.

  “This is terrible!” Allie said. She peered. “It says ‘Site Office.’ ”

  “Hah!” said Granda sourly, and for extra comment he made a loud sizzling sound by dropping several strips of bacon into a frying pan. This was rapidly drowned out by shouts and clangs from outside, as a gaggle of workmen emerged from the Trout bus and began unloading the trucks. To the back of the first truck they attached a long ramp, and drove the crane cautiously down it, heading for the truck with the container-office. The bulldozers chugged down an unloading ramp too, and trundled off in the direction of the next-door farm.

  Granda, Tom and the twins ate bacon and eggs in a gloomy silence, until Allie could no longer bear it. She pushed a piece of bread fiercely into the toaster.

  “What are they doing?” she said.

  Jay got up, and went through the door connecting kitchen and store, peering out at the loch and the parking lot. “They’re unloading that house-thing with the crane, on the far side of the lot.”

  “I don’t mean right this minute, I mean what’s it all about? How can they actually start building a hotel when the store is right in the way, and Granda won’t sell?”

  Her father said, “I think William Trout has declared war. He knows he can move fast, and he knows that the only things we can do to stop him will be very slow.”

  Outside the back door of the kitchen there was the muffled rattle of Portia leaning her bicycle against the wall, and she came in, hasty and upset.

  “There are bulldozers out there!” she said. “Scooping up trees! Picking them up by the roots and dumping them in a pile! That beautiful old stretch of oak trees between the store and the old farm!”

  Granda said, “In just a wee while they’ll be digging up the farm, too.”

  “Stop them!” said Portia.

  Tom sighed. “Just tell us how,” he said.

  “It’s Sam Johnson’s fault,” Jay said. “Castle Keep’s the only reason they came here. They’re calling it the Trout Castle Resort, right? Why doesn’t he just tell them they can’t have the castle—that they can’t even go near it?”

  “Money,” Granda said. He got up, and took his empty plate to the sink. “The Trout Corporation has bought him. Castle Keep doesnae mean hundreds of years of clan history to him and his brother, it means bills, bills, bills—to pay the rates, to patch the roof, to pay the guides. The money coming in from visitors covers maybe a quarter of that.”

  “He made it work until Trout came along,” Allie said unhappily. Her piece of bread leaped out of the toaster, and she got up to rescue it. Beside her at the sink, Granda turned on the hot-water tap, and nothing came out.

  They both stared.

  Allie said, “Where’s the water?”

  She put down her toast and turned on the other tap. Nothing happened.

  Portia said, “You have mains water, right, piped from Appin? You aren’t on a well?”

  “Aye, mains water,” Granda said.

  “It’s those bulldozers!” Portia said. “They must have hit a pipe.”

  Granda said something very loud and angry in Gaelic, and dived for the door into the store. Everyone followed him, as he marched across the castle parking lot toward the Site Office, which the workmen had now installed on the opposite side from the jetty. Its door was open, and a young man in a Trout Corporation jacket was carrying in a box from one of the trucks.

  “What are you people doing?” Granda demanded. “You’ve just cut off our water supply.”

  “Don’t know anything about that,” the man said. “We’re just setting up. You’ll want the Site Manager.”

  “Where is he?” said Portia.

  “Not here yet. Like I said, we’re just setting up. The office. And stuff for the new jetty.”

  “New jetty?” said Jay. “What’s wrong with this one?”

  “Too small,” the young man said. He peered at them more closely. “You’re those kids who were at the press conference, aren’t you—well, you saw the model. A new jetty on the castle island, and a real big one here, so we can have a marina. People at the hotel and the condos, they’ll all have boats.”

  He looked out at the road, where yet another truck was slowly approaching. “Ah,” he said, sounding relieved. “Here’s Freddy now.”

  This Trout Corporation truck was smaller than the others, but heavily loaded with bundles of planks and beams; it drew up beside the jetty. When Freddy climbed down, the twins saw that he was one of the chunky Americans who had interrupted their television interview the day before. He ambled toward them.

  “You’re the Site Manager?” Granda said. “I’m Angus Cameron. I live here. Someone’s cut off the water supply to my house, I need it put back again. Now.”

  Freddy said, “I’ll look into it.” He waved to the workmen manning the crane, and they swung it over toward the load in his truck.

  “Now!” said Granda.

  “It goes right there,” Freddy shouted to the workmen, and then he smiled politely at Granda. “Of course, sir,” he said. “In the meantime, it would be safer for everybody if you’d all keep clear of our loading zone.”

  And he disappeared inside the door of the Site Office.

  * * *

  “Listen!” said the Boggart to Nessie. “It’s the invading man again! We have to help our people. They don’t have an army to drive him out—what can we do?”

  The noise of trucks, bulldozers and crane had filtered into the library of Castle Keep, and woken them up. In the shape of seals, they were out in the loch, floating beside the jetty, staring across the parking lot in puzzled disapproval at the trucks, the crane, and the Site Office. The lumber from Freddy’s truck was stacked on the shore, and the workmen had followed him into the office to make everyone a cup of tea.

  In the store, Granda was waiting impatiently for his taps to start running again, and the twins were taking turns at watching whatever might happen next in the parking lot. Portia had gone off on her bicycle to see whether the bulldozers were still knocking down trees.

  “Look at this,” said Nessie to the Boggart. “Here’s how we can start.”

  And he hauled his sturdy seal-body up on to the shore, nudged himself close to a bundle of planks, and pushed it into the water.

  Then he gave a happy seal-honk, and did it again.

  “Yes!” said the Boggart in delight, and he climbed out of the loch to do the same.

  Watching from the store, Allie noticed the splashing, but could see nobody near it. She went outside to look more closely, and suddenly everyone heard her give a strangled shriek that was the sound of excitement trying to keep itself secret.

  “Come quick!” she croaked. “It’s the seals! Look what they’re doing!” And Jay, Tom and Granda scrambled after her as she rushed toward the loch.

  Two more piles of lumber splashed into the water. The Boggart and Nessie were lost in the pleasure of mischief, which has forever been the favorite occupation of boggarts. They hauled their ungainly seal-bodies back from the edge of the jetty toward the remaining stacks of lumber, paying no attention to Allie as she came skating up to them, with the others close at her heels.

  Watching in disbelief, Allie started to laugh.

  “Look at them! It’s amazing! They’re just seals, but it’s as if they knew about old Trout!”

  Jay said, grinning, “Granda, have you ever seen seals do that before?”

  Granda was standing very still.

  “I havenae,” he said. “No indeed, I have never known a seal to behave like this.”

  He glanced over toward the Site Office, and then he looked at Tom.

  There was something in the sound of his voice that made the twins look at their father too. He was s
taring at the seals, with an expression on his face that they had never seen before. The surprise and disbelief were there, but so was something else, indefinable, a kind of wonder.

  Tom Cameron walked slowly toward one of the two seals. It was slightly smaller than the other, and as he approached, it pushed one more bundle of planks into the loch and splashed in after it.

  Water sprayed over Tom’s face and shirt, and he wiped it out of his eyes. But he was still gazing at the seal, and now he was beginning to smile.

  He said, “Boggart?”

  Allie blinked, puzzled.

  The seal looked up from the water, out of its dark round eyes.

  Tom said, “It’s me, it’s Tommy. I grew up. D’you remember me, Boggart?”

  The head of the second seal emerged from the water, next to the first, and gazed at him.

  “Nessie?” Tom said. “Is that you too, then? You stayed here, you never left!”

  The two seals paused there, swaying with the small waves. They were both staring at Tom Cameron.

  Tom said softly, in Gaelic, “Tha mo chridhe maille ribh.”

  The words seemed to hang in the air, like the echo of music. For a moment Allie felt almost as though time had stopped.

  Then all at once the seals were gone. Neither Jay nor Allie saw them disappear under the water; they were just suddenly . . . not there.

  Allie said, “What was it that you said?”

  Her father seemed not to hear her.

  Granda moved forward a little, and the two men stood together, father and son, the two faces echoing each other even though the hair above one was white and the other dark. They were both smiling, as though someone had just given them a wonderful present.

  Jay and Allie stood watching them, bewildered.

  Tom said, “He’s back! He’s back!”

  Granda said, “I think you’re right.”

  “And Nessie, too!”

  “Both of them!” Granda said. “After all this time—it’s been ten years or more.”

  “They’re back!” said Tom again joyously.

  Granda said, “I thought they’d just gone away, after you grew to be a man, an’ left, and Mr. Mac died.”

  “They were sleeping. I bet they were sleeping. They can sleep for years and years, the old MacDevon said.”

  Jay said, “Who can sleep? What on earth are you guys talking about?”

  His father paid him no attention whatsoever. Suddenly he gave a kind of happy yodeling shout, like an impulsive small boy, and he called out something else in Gaelic across the loch.

  Allie said, baffled, “Is he calling the seals? Dad! What are you doing? What’s happening?”

  Granda put a comforting arm across her shoulders, but he was still smiling. He said, “Those two, they were not real seals, they had taken the shape of seals. It’s hard tae tell the difference, but there is a trick of the light on the skin, if you have seen it before. They are shape-shifters, they can become anything they choose.”

  “They?” Jay said. “Who’s they?”

  Granda said, “Boggarts.”

  Allie looked up at him.

  “Boggarts,” she said.

  “Very ancient creatures, of the Wild Magic,” said their grandfather, whom they had never heard utter an irrational word before, in all their lives.

  Jay said helplessly, “Magic?”

  “The Wild Magic of the earth survives in the islands of Britain, and some other places,” said their scientist father, smiling at them. “And its creatures have no beginning or end, they just are. There are very few of them left, and very, very few people are lucky enough ever to know them.”

  Jay and Allie stared at him.

  And from the air over the rippling water of the loch, a voice came whispering to them in Gaelic, even though nobody was there.

  SEVEN

  Jay and Allie listened to the voice whispering across the water: a soft, hoarse voice that came out of nowhere.

  They looked all round the loch. They looked at each other, and then at their father, as their world changed a little.

  Tom Cameron smiled out at the invisible voice, and called out some more words in Gaelic. Then he raised a hand to the empty air over the loch, like a greeting, or a farewell.

  Jay said, “This isn’t really happening.”

  “But it is,” Allie said.

  “He said they’re going back to the castle for a nap, because they’re a wee bit tired,” Tom Cameron said. He grinned. “And no wonder, after all that.”

  Jay said, trying hard to sound normal, “They live in the castle?”

  “Well, they don’t live anywhere in particular,” said his father cheerfully. “But the Boggart’s been around Castle Keep for centuries. The MacDevon clan were his people—and so we are too. He has a favorite place in the library where he likes to sleep—and Nessie, too, I guess. Oh, and he said they hoped you would sing the prince’s song again—what does that mean, eh?”

  Jay sat down abruptly on one of the remaining piles of lumber. “Uh,” he said.

  “When we went to the Seal Rocks with Portia,” Allie said. “You sang for her. And there was a seal that looked at you, only you didn’t notice. Oh my goodness.”

  Jay looked at Granda in helpless appeal. He said, “There are seals sleeping in the castle library and nobody’s noticed?”

  “Oh, they’re only seals when they feel like it—they’re invisible,” Granda said. “I told you, they’re shape-shifters, they can be anything or nothing. Nessie got his name because he spent a heck of a long time pretending to be the Loch Ness Monster.”

  “And nearly got stuck forever, and had to be rescued,” said Tom.

  Allie said slowly, “After Granda took his picture?”

  “It’s a long story,” Granda said.

  Jay said, “When Mom and Uncle Jess were kids, when Grandpa Robert inherited Castle Keep and they all came over—did they know about the Boggart?”

  “Did they ever!” Tom Cameron said, laughing. “He lived with them in Toronto for three weeks—got taken there by accident in a piece of furniture. It was a triumph when we got him back again.”

  Jay and Allie stared at him, baffled.

  Allie said, “Why didn’t anyone ever tell us? Not even when we were here?”

  Their father said, “Would you have believed it, before you heard the Boggart’s voice?”

  There was a long pause. Allie and Jay looked at each other.

  “Well . . . no,” Jay said.

  There was a shout from the other side of the parking lot, and they saw that the American called Freddy had emerged from the Site Office with two of the Trout workmen. He came striding across to the jetty, staring at the water now puddling its surface, and then peered over the edge at the piles of wood submerged in the loch.

  “What the—?” he said, and he stared at the twins, at Granda’s white hair, and finally, disbelievingly, at Tom.

  “You did this?” he demanded.

  Jay said, “It was the seals.”

  “Oh sure,” said the nearest workman. “You trained them, right?”

  Freddy said slowly, “Maybe it was. That wood’s real heavy. These folks couldn’t move it.”

  “Six bundles—seven!” said the workman, leaning out over the water. “Crazy damn animals—we need someone on shotgun duty.”

  Granda said, “Seals are protected in Scotland, my friend. Bring a gun out here and your Mr. Trout will be in big trouble.”

  “Mr. Trout’s going to bring big trouble for anyone interfering with this development,” Freddy said. He unhooked a two-way radio from his belt. “I suggest you people do what I asked, and keep away from our loading zone. Whoever pushed this wood into the water, we’re going to fish it out and nobody, nobody had better touch any construction material again.”

  Granda said, “This jetty may be your loading zone, but it’s also where we keep my boat, for castle maintenance every week.”

  Freddy glanced at him without real interest, b
usy with his radio. “You won’t be doing that anymore, didn’t they tell you?” he said. “We do it from now on—part of the Trout agreement. Access to the castle is limited to Trout Corporation staff until the resort’s up and running. And the castle’s own jetty is terrible—we’re building a new one. Top priority.”

  Granda’s face froze into a very rare expression that the twins knew was a cover for rage. He said coldly, “And your top priority is putting back my water supply, which your construction has illegally cut off.”

  “I’ll look into that,” Freddy said.

  * * *

  “The Boggart and Nessie,” Portia said, to the twins’ astonishment. “Yes, Angus told me all about them. Lovely. My grannie was Welsh. She used to talk about a creature like that called a pwca. How wonderful if they’re back.”

  She smiled compassionately at Allie and Jay. “I know it’s hard to believe. Maybe Angus should show you Mr. Mac’s letter.”

  They were all back in the store, and she had reported that the bulldozers and a team of workmen had begun to demolish the farmhouse next door. Out around the jetty, more workmen were splashing and shouting, trying to use the crane to rescue the piles of planks now lying at the bottom of the loch.

  “No letter till I’ve reached the spineless Sam Johnson,” Granda said, dropping the house phone back into its holder. He had already made three unanswered calls, and left three increasingly angry messages.

  Portia said to Jay, “Just think of the boggarts as characters in a video game, only real.”

  “What was Mr. Mac’s letter?” Allie said.

  Tom said, “Where is it, Dad?”

  “Bottom drawer of my desk, left-hand side,” Granda said, and started pressing buttons again. By the time he had put the phone down once more, muttering, Tom was back with a leather folder in his hand. He put it down on the kitchen table, and the twins came peering as he opened it.

  They saw a single sheet of paper with a crest at the top, and a handwritten letter set out neatly below. The handwriting was looped and graceful; it looked old.

  Their father said, “You know about Mr. Mac, right? He was Sam Johnson’s uncle.”

  “Yes, of course,” Allie said. “The lawyer. Who bought Castle Keep from Grandpa Robert, who’d inherited it and never should have sold it.”