Faerie Tale (8 page)

Mark said, “He’s my assistant and is the best cook around—present company excluded.”

“Come inside and have a drink. Dinner is cooking and we can all get acquainted.” Agatha allowed Philip to hold open the door as she led the others inside.

Philip followed last, behind Gary. Blackman’s assistant moved with a loose-gaited walk that suggested a basketball player to Philip, or at least some sort of athletic background.

Jack offered drinks to Mark and Gary, while Agatha removed herself to the kitchen to finish dinner. Jack returned to Gabbie’s side; Gloria was smiling at Mark’s comment that he had seen her once in a play. When he commented upon a small problem during the second act, she grinned. “You did see the play!” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “In my former calling, you hear a lot of empty flattery.”

“No, I did see the play and remember your performance quite well.”

Gary said, “Jack, how about a game of tennis tomorrow?”

Jack groaned. “You mean how about you administering another thrashing?” He said to Gabbie, “He knows I’ve a gimpy leg and delights in embarrassing me.”

“Do you play?” Gary inquired of Gabbie.

“A little,” the girl answered.

“Good, I’ll call Ellen and we can play some doubles.”

Gabbie shrugged. Jack said, “At least we’ll go down together. Gary’s girlfriend is as good a tennis player as he is—which is very good. I hope you can cover a lot of court.”

Gabbie smiled slightly, and Gloria grinned behind her glass as she sipped her drink. Mark leaned close and said, “She plays well?”

“Gabbie plays tennis like it’s war,” whispered Gloria.

“Gary’s pretty good; so is Ellen.”

“It should be a good match,” offered Phil, coming over to sit beside his wife.

“You’ve purchased the Old Kessler Place,” commented Mark. “That’s one of the most interesting pieces of land around here. I tried to rent it myself when I first moved here.”

Gloria and Phil exchanged glances and Phil said, “It was just a matter of luck I inquired the week it came on the market. It was a steal at the price. But Kessler died only a month before I called the broker. So you must have tried to rent it from the old man himself.”

“Not really. When I came to this area, Kessler was in Germany and the house empty for almost a year, but I couldn’t find anyone who could tell me how to reach him. Perhaps he was visiting relatives, or friends of his father. That’s where he died, you know.”

Phil nodded. “That was mentioned. Why’d you want to rent the farm?”

Mark smiled. “There’s a lot of history about that place.” He paused, then said, “I’m working on a new book myself, and while I’m reluctant to discuss it, let’s say that the history of the Kessler family has no small bearing upon the subject matter. Herman’s father, Fredrick Kessler, was something of a mystery man. He arrived from somewhere in the south of Germany, or perhaps Austria, in 1905, with a lot of money. It appears that when the First World War broke out there was some minor problem with his citizenship, but other than that he was a model member of the community. He married a girl named Helga Dorfmann and had one son. He built a furniture factory, competing with the larger manufacturers over in Jamestown. His furniture was sturdy and cheap, and he made a lot of money. One of the more interesting stories is that he had a fortune in gold buried somewhere on the property.”

Gloria laughed in delight. “Buried treasure! Let’s start digging!”

Gary grinned his toothy grin. “You’ve a lot of property. It could take some time. Besides, it’s only a story.”

“My interest,” commented Blackman, “was in the
Kessler library and any other oddities lying about, the ephemerides of the days of Fredrick Kessler’s youth, so to speak.”

Gloria glanced at Phil, who said, “I’ve only glanced at the books in the library. The broker had no idea what was in the house. When Kessler died, he owed a lot of back taxes, and the state was in a hurry to sell it. The court appointed Kessler’s bank executor. I got the impression things were left a little informal. The loan officer I dealt with was pretty obviously in a rush to unload it; they’d halted the foreclosure and hurried the sale. Anyway, he said there was no family, so he tossed everything into the deal, including old clothes, dishes, the furniture and books. I don’t know a tenth of what’s there. You’re welcome to drop in and borrow anything you’d like.”

“I was hoping you’d invite me. Perhaps in a few days. I’ll tell you what: If you don’t mind Gary and me prowling about for a while, we’ll catalog the library as we go, so you’ll have a full inventory when we’re through. And if anything strikes my fancy, give me first chance to buy.”

“You’ve got it.”

Gloria said, “There’s a bunch of old trunks in the attic and basement, too.”

Gary’s eyes almost lit up. “Wonderful. Who knows what odd bits of treasure lurk in the dark!”

Gabbie laughed. “Jack said the woods are haunted; now buried treasure. You sure know how to pick ’em, Dad.”

Agatha reappeared and demanded assistance, so Jack drafted Gabbie and the two went off to set the table. Gary mentioned a film of Phil’s and the talk turned to stories of Hollywood and the frustrations of filmmaking. Gloria settled back, letting the conversation slip by her. For some reason the talk of buried treasure and haunted woods had made her uncomfortable. And for some unexplained reason she wondered how the boys were.

Dinner was superb. True to Jack’s promise, Agatha Grant was an exceptional cook. She produced an elegant meal, each dish prepared with an attention to detail guaranteed to make it a treat. Even the twins, who tended to be fussy eaters, finished their food with no complaint.

Gloria had noticed they seemed somewhere else, and occasionally caught them glancing at each other, as if sharing something between themselves. She inquired if they had enjoyed themselves, and they agreed Aggie’s farm was pretty neat. “Barney showed us the lambs,” ventured Sean.

Phil said, “Who’s Barney?”

“He’s a man,” said Sean. “He was fixing the plumbing.”

“Ya, and he smells like Uncle Steve,” said Patrick as he impaled a broccoli spear with his fork. “Uncle” Steve Owinski was another screenwriter and a close friend of Phil’s, and he was a chronic drinker.

Jack rose and quickly cleared away the dinner plates, carrying them to the kitchen. Agatha said, “Barney Doyle. He’s the local handyman.” Seeing a small look of concern on Gloria’s face, she added, “He’s a bit of a tippler, but completely harmless. From what I hear, he was a ripsnorter as a young man, but swore off drinking years ago. Suddenly he’s drinking again. I can’t imagine why.”

Gary said, “Well, you know what they say about alcoholics never being truly recovered.” Gloria nodded.

“Anyway,” said Agatha, “he’s a fine fix-it man, and if you have any problems, give him a call. The service men from the mall stores take forever, want to take everything back to the shop, then keep whatever for months. Barney’s reliable and cheap. He has a work shed, little more than a shack, on the other side of my property, right at
the end of Williams Avenue. You can cut through the woods from your home.” Agatha smiled fondly. “Barney fits my longing for simpler times, when all you had was the local fix-it shop. He’s a living American artifact. Besides, I have him around as much for research as the need for repairs. The man was born in Ireland and has an astonishing wealth of Irish oral tradition. In comparing what he knows with what the second-, third-, and fourth-generation Irish here know, I can begin to gauge how much change the myths have undergone in Ireland and America.”

Jack stuck his head through the door. “Coffee?” He took stock of who indicated yes, and vanished back into the kitchen.

Gabbie rose. “I think I’ll give Jack a hand.”

Mark said, “Aggie’s picked a tough one. Irish lore, like most in Europe, has been ‘frozen’ by the printing press. Children now read fairy tales rather than listen at their mother’s knee—if they read them at all.”

“So you don’t think she’ll find much variation?” asked Phil.

Mark shook his head in the negative, while Agatha smiled indulgently. “We’ve had this argument before,” she ventured. “Mark is something of a homegrown social anthropologist and claims there is no true oral tradition in Europe or America anymore.”

“Well, maybe among the older American Indians and rural folk up in the Appalachians, but nowhere else. Not when you can pick up a book and read the same story in England and America. No, if you’re researching myths about cluricaunes, you’ll find the same story in William Pitt County as you would in County Cork.”

“What are cluricaunes?” asked Phil.

Agatha said, “Leprechauns. They’re called lurikeen, lurigandaun, and luricans in different parts of Ireland.”

Gloria sat back. There was something passing between the boys, she could sense it. And it worried her. She silently wondered why the talk was making her tense.

Agatha glanced at the boys and asked, “Do you boys know what a leprechaun is?”

“Little men in green coats?” said Patrick, an odd expression on his face.

Sean’s eyes widened at Patrick’s answer, then suddenly his face became animated as he blurted, “Darby O’Gill!”

Phil laughed. “Just so.”

Mark said, “Who’s Darby O’Gill?”

“It’s a Disney film,
Darby O’Gill and the Little People.
The boys saw it before we left California.”

“Yeah,” said Sean with a pout. “We had the Disney Channel on cable.”

“I rest my case,” offered Mark. “The boys are getting their folk myths from television.”

Gloria said, “They’ve been disconsolate there’s no cable available out at the farm.” She roughed Sean’s hair. “Now you’ll just have to make do with three channels, like normal people.”

Phil said, “I was saving it as a surprise, boys, but I’ve ordered a satellite dish installed next week.”

The two boys’ eyes widened. “We’ll get hundreds of channels!” shouted Patrick.

Over the laughter in the dining room, Gloria ordered the boys to stifle their enthusiasm. Sean said, “Barry Walter’s father has the channel with naked ladies on it.”

Gloria said, “We’ll talk about this when we get home.”

Phil laughed. “It’s all right. I got the one with the lock switch. The boys won’t be watching any X-rated movies for a few more years.”

Jack and Gabbie returned with cake and coffee.

“Speaking of fairy myths, does anyone know what night this is?” Gary asked.

Mark and Agatha looked at each other and laughed, but it was Gloria who answered. “Midsummer’s Night.”

“Like in Shakespeare?” said Jack.

Phil said, “I thought the solstice was three days ago.”

“On the calendar of the Church, it’s the twenty-fourth,” said Gloria. “The nativity of St. John the Baptist.”

Phil said, “I’ve read
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
I
thought it was just … a night in the middle of summer.

Agatha said, “There are three days supposedly special to fairies: May first, June twenty-fourth, and November first. This is a night of power and celebration according to legend.”

“What are the other two days? I know the first of November is All Saints’, but what about the first of May?”

“May Day,” ventured Gary. “Fairies are Marxists.”

Over the groans of the others, Agatha said, “It’s the day after Walpurgis Night, just as All Saints’ follows Halloween. Both are Moving Days.”

When the others looked uncomprehending, Mark Blackman said, “In the Irish tradition, the fairies move from place to place on those two days. We’re speaking of the Trooping Fairies. Shakespeare had them staying forever in the night:

“‘And we fairies, that do run
By the triple Hecate’s team,
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream.’”

“But he’s alone in that view. According to tradition, the fairies live for six months in a stand of woods, then move to another, perhaps on the other side of the world. And they make the move in one night.”

Mark again quoted Shakespeare:

“‘We the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wandering moon.’”

“It’s why fairy stories abound everywhere. Over the ages the fairies have lived in every part of the world,” said Aggie. “If you believe in them.”

“And tonight’s a special night for them?” ventured Gabbie with a laugh.

“According to legend,” agreed Agatha. “They’ll be throwing a grand party tonight.”

Turning to Jack, Gabbie said, “Let’s go out to that fairy mound we saw the other day. Maybe we’ll see the party.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Mark. All eyes turned to regard him. “Those woods are pretty dangerous in the dark.”

Gloria looked alarmed. “How do you mean, dangerous?”

Gabbie made a face. “Ghosts? Indian spirits?”

“Gabbie, let him answer,” snapped Gloria. Gabbie flushed and was about to retort when she saw Jack shaking his head and indicating the boys, who sat in rapt attention. Suddenly she understood Gloria’s worry, and she felt silly. “Why are the woods dangerous, Mark? Wild animals?”

Mark smiled and tried to look reassuring. “No, nothing like that. No bears or wolves in ages. Nothing much bigger than a weasel or fox since the turn of the century. Just, it’s easy to get lost there and there are a lot more woods than you’d think and they’re pretty dense in places.” Mark turned to Aggie. “Remember Reno McManus? He got lost taking a shortcut in the dark, fell down an embankment, and broke his hip. It was two days before anyone found him. Died of exposure. And he’d lived all his life in the area. It’s just a bad idea to be poking about in the woods after dark, that’s all I meant.”

Agatha said, “Reno McManus was a drunk, and he could have gotten lost in his own bathtub. If Jack and Gabbie take a light and stay to the path, they should have no trouble.” Her eyes were merry as she cast a glance at the youngsters, indicating Mark was being obtuse in not seeing they wanted some time alone together.

Mark said, “Well that’s true.” He let the conversation fall off.

Agatha rose. “Let’s retire to the parlor, like civilized folk, and we can continue this lovely evening.” She glanced at Jack. “Fetch the brandy, won’t you?”