The Boggart Fights Back

by Susan Cooper

  “Whatever it was,” Nessie said, “he deserved it.”

  * * *

  In the private dining-room of the Trout Queen that night, Trout and Freddy Winter sat down at a gleaming mahogany table. Freddy eyed his employer carefully. William Trout still looked pale and shaken, and considering that he appeared to have been half drowned earlier in the day, Freddy was amazed to have been invited to dinner. But clearly there had been some result to Trout’s passionate search for the Loch Ness Monster, and he was itching to hear what it was.

  The steward served them both their first course, steaming bowls of mushroom soup made, he reported confidentially, from mushrooms picked that morning in an Argyll meadow. He filled their wineglasses with wine, their water glasses with Scottish sparkling water. Then he turned to go. Freddy could see Mr. Trout watching until he had left the room.

  Trout said, “I’m tired of this hunt for the Loch Ness Monster, Freddy. You can give it up.”

  “Oh,” Freddy said cautiously. “Okay.” He sipped his soup.

  William Trout’s left shoulder gave a sudden twitch, jerking upward. “I don’t think people would find it an attraction,” he said. “Wrong decision. I very seldom make mistakes, but that was one.”

  “Whatever you say, boss,” Freddy said.

  Trout said, “I’m having a no-disclosure document drawn up, for you and the two guys who saw what we saw, that day. And the spotter on the loch, too. Everyone will guarantee they’ll never talk about it—not online, or to the press, or to anyone. You’d have no trouble signing that, I’m sure.”

  “Of course not,” Freddy said.

  Trout looked at his plate without appetite. “It’s a strange place, this,” he said. “You hear stories that are very hard to believe.”

  “Very hard,” Freddy said.

  “I don’t believe in passing on stories like that, do you?”

  “Absolutely not,” said Freddy. “This soup is excellent.”

  Okay, he thought to himself. So we don’t talk about the Monster, not even to each other. And we’ll never know what happened to him today.

  “Tell me,” said Trout, “how far precisely have we come with this project, as of today? What’s the progress report?”

  Freddy drank some more soup. “The little castle jetty’s finished,” he said, “and the big one’s half-done. We start dredging for the marina next week. The farm has gone, the berm facing the Camerons is done, so long as you think it’s high enough. We can start the hotel foundation as soon as Mr. Tutti sends the revised plans.”

  “Very good,” said William Trout. His shoulder jerked upward again, and he grabbed crossly at his left arm to stop it. “Are you enjoying Scotland, Freddy?”

  “Not much, to be honest,” Freddy said. He added hastily, “But hey, I love my job. Some places are just better than others.”

  “Ah,” said Trout. He sipped some sparkling water. “It’s not public knowledge yet,” he said, “but I’m about to build a new resort, probably in Ireland. I plan on sending you over there to head up the project.”

  “Wow!” Freddy said.

  “With a major salary increase, of course.”

  Freddy beamed. “That’s terrific.”

  “Not a word to the press yet, though,” said William Trout. He tried hard to smile at Freddy, as the steward appeared in the doorway with their next course. “I’m still working on it.”

  “You bet, boss,” said Freddy Winter. “And just give us that paper to sign when you’re ready, me and the other guys. They’ll be going to Ireland too, right? And maybe with a raise?”

  “Of course,” Trout said.

  Freddy said, “Great!”

  He watched with interest as his employer’s shoulder gave another uncontrollable upward twitch.

  NINETEEN

  To the twins’ surprise and delight, Granda put everyone—including Portia—back into the boat next day and announced that they were going to Castle Keep.

  “We don’t have permission,” Allie said.

  “Nor did you,” said Granda. “And I want to see those plans of his for myself, just in case we need them.”

  They took the rest of Allie’s chocolate chip cookies, in a tin, and other things for a teatime picnic. As they climbed up the rocky approach to Castle Keep, on its little island, there was no knowing whether it was the cookies or the castle that brought the Boggart to join them.

  A breeze blew round their heads, though the day was calm, and faintly they heard a husky voice humming the tune of “Hey Johnnie Cope.”

  “Boggart!” said Jay.

  The Boggart said from the air, “The invading man has caught a cold.”

  “Good!” said Tom Cameron. “And where is the terrible Nuckelavee?”

  “He is calm,” the Boggart said. “And swimming with Nessie, and the seals.” He dived in through the doorway, as Granda opened the castle door with the heavy iron key. He was humming again; from the kitchen they could hear faint snatches of the tune come and go as he flew round all the passages and rooms of the castle, inspecting it.

  “He sounds cheerful,” Allie said. “But how do we know if his plan worked? Even after yesterday, we don’t know what Trout will do.”

  “You never can tell wi’ boggarts,” Granda said. “They show what’s blowin’, they’re like weather vanes. Maybe he’s had a lurk round the yacht and heard things that we don’t know. Come on—the library.”

  Portia was filling the kettle. “I’ll catch you up,” she said. “I’m making tea.”

  Jay and Allie led the little procession down the passage and up the stairs. Now that they were looking in daylight, they could see that the stone walls of the corridor were lined with bright pictures of Trout resorts in other countries: a hotel in the Bahamas, a casino in South America, a golf course in Ireland.

  But in the library, all the signs of Trout occupation had gone away. The tables had been moved back to their original places, and the MacDevon’s big oak desk was back where it had been. All the files and papers had been taken away, and there was no sign of the two models of the Trout Castle Resort. The few parts of the walls that were not covered by bookshelves held only dark prints of Highland landscapes, as they always had.

  “Everything’s gone!” Allie said, disappointed. “They must have come over this morning.”

  “Never mind,” said Granda. “We have your pictures.”

  Tom Cameron said, “And I have a feeling Dad’s right—we may not need them again.”

  They heard a faint whistling in the air; it was the tune of “Hey Johnnie Cope” again.

  Allie looked round at the book-lined walls. “Where are you, Boggart?” she said.

  The Boggart said, “He’s come, in a wee boat! He’s here!” His voice faded away, as he darted into his favorite resting place on the high shelf.

  “Who’s here?”

  Portia came carefully through the door carrying a tray loaded with teacups, sugar bowl, milk jug. Behind her, carrying the teapot, came William Trout. He was dressed all in black. His bald head gleamed, and his nose was rather red.

  “You have a visitor,” Portia said. “If ‘visitor’ is the right word.”

  “We’re the visitors,” Granda said. He gave Trout a cold, unsmiling look, but moved aside so that he could put the teapot on a desk. Trout just managed to set it down before giving an enormous sneeze, clapping his free hand to his face.

  “Excuse me,” he said through the hand. He pulled a fistful of tissues from his pocket and blew his nose.

  “You caught cold,” Portia said brightly, reaching for the teapot. “Not surprising, I suppose.” She poured tea and began handing round the cups, along with Allie’s tin of cookies.

  William Trout looked at her more closely, with caution. “You heard that I fell in the loch, I guess.” His left shoulder jerked upward, and his face flickered with irritation.

  Granda said, “She knows why, too. Portia is part of the family.” He sat down in a big armchair, with his cup of te
a.

  “Oh,” said William Trout. “Well.”

  He drew himself upright, standing there in his black Trout Corporation jacket with a thick black turtleneck underneath, and he took the teacup Portia handed him and put it down on the nearest bookshelf. They gazed at him, seeing in their minds the shrieking figure stuck captive on the skinless red back of the Nuckelavee, the sodden, terrified wreck of a man gibbering in the bottom of a rocking dinghy.

  Trout turned to Granda. “I saw you all coming to the castle, and I decided we should have a talk,” he said. “About yesterday.”

  “Talk away,” Granda said.

  “First, I have to thank you all for your help,” Trout said. He paused, and stood looking at them, as if he were waiting for something.

  They looked back, expressionless.

  “You’re welcome,” Tom Cameron said.

  William Trout inclined his head graciously. “Then . . . clearly there are things about this place that I didn’t know when I chose it.” He sounded stiff and formal, as if he were addressing a public meeting. “As you must know, I have a fiduciary responsibility to the guests who come to stay at my resorts. Their safety is in my hands, as well as their enjoyment. Now that I’ve found out there are highly dangerous creatures in Loch Linnhe, in all conscience I can’t expose anyone to that danger.”

  Allie clutched Jay’s arm, silently, hopefully.

  “Quite right,” Tom Cameron said. He nodded his head very slowly and soberly at William Trout. “Quite right—you could get sued for very large sums of money,” he said.

  “You could indeed,” said Granda gravely. “You might be in trouble if anyone even saw a dangerous creature, let alone got attacked by one.”

  Jay burst out, “So are you going away?”

  William Trout ignored him, but suddenly his stiffness was gone. “Where did you find that obscene animal?” he said to Granda. “And how do you control it?”

  “We don’t,” Granda said.

  “Of course you do!” Trout said. “That’s why it came for me!” His left shoulder gave a great twitch again, and he clutched at it. “Came for me . . . ,” he said, muffled.

  “I would have been scared too,” said Allie. “It was an awful, awful thing, I was terrified just looking at it.”

  Mr. Trout gave a forced little laugh. He let go of his shoulder and picked up his teacup. “Nothing scares the Trout,” he said. “I am one of the bravest people you will ever meet!”

  Then he sneezed. “Shoot!” he said, and blew his nose.

  “I could have sworn that was a frightened man we pulled out of the water,” Tom Cameron said. “Frightened out of his wits. Babbling.”

  William Trout opened his mouth for an angry retort, and then closed it again. He glared at Tom. “Listen, Cameron,” he said. “I’m a very smart businessman, and one of the reasons I’m so good is that I know when to walk away from a deal. Even if it costs me. I don’t know how you people have control over that appalling creature, but I do know I’m going to make very sure I never get near it again. Ever.”

  “Mr. Trout?” Granda said. He got up out of his chair and stood facing the big man. His mop of white hair looked even wilder than usual.

  “Gi’e a thought, Mr. Trout, to a place where no man has control,” he said softly. “A place with wild things, that no man can buy, or own, or use. This place doesnae want ye, Mr. Trout. Nor all your concrete and towers and dirt, wi’ your high talk about jobs that means nothing but a way to make you money. This place wants ye to go.”

  “Well, I’m going!” William Trout said furiously. “I’ve never liked this country—tight little place with its secret language—no wonder my grandmother left! I’m getting my resort out of here and I’m never coming back.” He drew himself up and pointed a finger at Granda. “Just don’t think that means that you can control the Trout, you or anyone else! The heck with this creepy Scottish loch—I can do anything I want, anywhere in the world!”

  He glared at them all, eyes wide—and then suddenly he swatted at the top of his bald head. “Damn it,” he said, “the place still has bugs!”

  The Boggart, having emerged to help himself to a cookie, had turned himself into a fly once more. Giggling, he made a second dive at William Trout, and Trout swatted again and succeeded only in smacking his own skull.

  He glanced down at his teacup and handed it to Portia. Then he looked round at the Camerons, without meeting anyone’s eye.

  “I’ll be in touch,” he said. “We hope to have a press conference in a few days’ time.” And he turned and left the room.

  Jay let out a whoop, and Portia and Tom Cameron joined in. Allie gave her grandfather a joyous hug.

  “Boggart,” she said to the air, “where are you? You made it work! He’s leaving, you’ve saved the loch!”

  The fly buzzed gaily round her head, and then vanished, and they heard the Boggart giggle again.

  “The invading man makes a lot o’ noise about new things,” he said, “but this is where the Old Things live.”

  * * *

  Ewan Nicolson was on duty for William Trout’s new press conference, which was held on the land between Granda’s store and the jetty. There was very little grass left on the dirt, but most of the trucks and bulldozers were gone. The announcement that the Trout Corporation had put out on the Internet about their change of plan was so unexpected, and so brief, that there were far more cameras and reporters than there had been the first time, even without large Trout buses to bring them in.

  Voices buzzed, cars were crammed into the parking lot surrounding Freddy’s Site Office, and in the store, Portia did a brisk trade in snacks and cold drinks. Granda, Tom and the twins sat behind the closed kitchen door, waiting for the press conference to begin and listening to Portia’s varied and creative ways of telling all eager press inquirers that they weren’t there.

  Ewan sat in his car, watching all the arrivals. It was late morning; the sky was overcast but the breeze was gentle, and his car window was open. Suddenly something was filling it, and he glanced up to see David Macdonald looking in.

  “David!”

  “Ciamar a tha thu?” said David Macdonald.

  “I’m fine. What’s this all about, do you know?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “I’m just a policeman,” said Ewan. “Nobody tells me anything.”

  Macdonald grinned. “They don’t tell me much either—but I think he’s packing it in.”

  “He is?” said Ewan, trying not to sound delighted. “Why?”

  “Well,” said David Macdonald, and he looked round at the blue-grey hills and the small waves on the loch, and the square outline of Castle Keep. He thought about the Blue Men of the Minch, about the strange shrieks he had heard onboard the Trout Queen, and most of all he thought about the Nuckelavee. He thought: but Ewan doesn’t know about all that, of course.

  “I think the place didn’t want him,” he said.

  And Ewan thought about two bunches of marker flags traveling unsupported through the air, and the sound of voices ringing out over the water, joined by the plaintive wail of bagpipes that were not there. He thought: but David doesn’t know about all that, of course.

  He said, “I think you’re right.”

  “Well,” said Macdonald, “I just brought him over from the boat, so pretty soon we’ll find out.”

  And from behind the hill of dirt that now loomed near Granda’s store, there was once more the discordant little groan that heralds a real set of bagpipes beginning to play, and out came the bagpiper in his kilt and after him William Trout, in the middle of a small group of men. One of them was chunky Freddy Winter; like the rest, he wore his trademark black Trout jacket with the bold yellow T on its back. But Mr. Trout was dressed very formally this time, in a dark suit, white shirt, and red tie; with his escort, he made his way to a little platform that had been put up close to the jetty, with several microphones at its inner edge.

  The crowd of reporters hurried to join t
he cameramen, who had already planted their cameras to face the platform, and Granda, Tom, Jay and Allie emerged unnoticed from the store to join them. Mr. Trout marched slowly through their ranks, while the piper played “The Skye Boat Song.” His arrival at the microphones gave the reporters a view of him set neatly against the backdrop of Castle Keep and the loch. The cameras clicked and hummed.

  William Trout raised a finger to the bagpiper, and he stopped playing.

  “Thank you all for coming,” said Mr. Trout into the microphones. His voice was hoarse, muffled by his cold. “I’ve been very grateful to the people of Scotland for all their tremendous support. I have some sad news to announce, I’m afraid. Sad, sad news. In spite of the fact that my Trout Castle Resort would have brought huge benefits to the Scottish economy, not to mention hundreds of jobs for the people of Argyll, we won’t be able to go ahead with it.”

  He paused, looking out gravely at them all. His left shoulder suddenly gave an enormous twitch. The reporters paid no attention; they were all scribbling busily in their notebooks and laptops.

  “Hooray!” said Jay under his breath.

  “The reason is Scottish,” said Mr. Trout. “More than anything, we respect the nature and integrity of the landscape of Argyll and of Loch Linnhe, and the need to keep it intact. Yes indeed. I’m famous for my concern for the environment.”

  He looked round, facing into the cameras, nodding his head. “We all know how important it is not to disturb endangered species of plants,” he said solemnly. “It has been reported to me that on the land where the Trout Castle Resort would stand, there are three—not just one, but three—endangered species growing, and it’s unthinkable that we should disturb them. So . . .” He paused, and sighed. “We will have to take our resort elsewhere.”

  A reporter called, “What are the three species, Mr. Trout?”

  “I didn’t bring my notes with me,” said William Trout. “We’ll post the names on our website.”

  On the edge of the crowd, Granda looked down at the twins and grinned. “Plants, eh?” he said quietly. “Very, very rare plants.”

  Allie grinned back. “So rare they don’t have names,” she said.