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Digging a grave with a foldable spade was no small task, but Miriam persisted. Kim stood above her, tears trickling down her face, dripping onto her blood-streaked shirt. The otter hadn’t even made it through the night. Moving it seemed to have re-opened its wound, but Miriam didn’t feel bad about that. It wouldn’t have lived where they found it, either. For Kim, burying this creature would bring some sort of closure, but for Miriam, burying it just made sense. Scavengers would pick up the scent of a dead otter quickly, and from very far away.
She’d been at it for a while, and had finally reached a depth that felt safe enough. From her knees, Miriam put her spade on the ground and reached her hands up to take the otter’s carcass. Kim sniffled and pulled it away from her body, the outline of its form starkly drawn in blood against the belly of her shirt. Miriam took the animal gingerly. Its head and tail fell limp, not stiff yet—as arduous as the task was, she’d dug quickly.
The hole she’d dug wasn’t quite as long as the otter, so Miriam had to curl it just slightly to make it fit. She used her body to block Kim’s view until she could get it looking natural, then took up her spade again.
“Any last words?”
Kim sniffled and shook her head. Miriam went to work filling in the hole.
When done, she stood, her hands covered in mud, her spade hopelessly dirty.
“Let’s head back to camp,” Miriam said. “Get you cleaned up.” She was doing her best to be understanding and supportive, but honestly, it was just an otter. She wouldn’t have wished death on it, but nature was cruel, and animals died all the time. Otters didn’t have much of a problem re-populating. Not like the fur trade was still in full swing.
Even for someone who obviously cared very much for animals, Kim’s overreaction was perplexing.
As they walked, Kim grabbed Miriam’s hand. Miriam bristled at first, but allowed it, understanding that such a gesture could provide comfort to those in such distress. They hadn’t strayed far from camp to dig the grave. Just far enough. By the time they made it back, Kim seemed to have calmed down considerably.
“So what do we do now?” Kim asked, as she started digging through her bag.
“I know it’ll take a while, but we should head back to the parking lot. I wanna make sure Macy’s okay.”
Kim pulled a fresh shirt from her bag and sat it on top. She stood and peeled the blood-soaked one off and over her head. Miriam quickly averted her eyes.
“I’ve got a bra on, ya know,” Kim said, some of her playfulness creeping back in.
Indeed, she did. A no-frills, functional lilac one. Kim walked towards the shore and scooped up some water in her hand, using it to scrub her stomach and chest, getting off any blood that had seeped through. Miriam spent the time fetching the clean shirt, offering it to Kim as soon as she returned from the water’s edge.
Kim laughed as she took it. “You’re a weird girl, Miriam Brooks.”
Miriam didn’t answer, and relaxed only after Kim had dressed. Miriam didn’t know why such things bothered her. She could autopsy an animal without breaking a sweat, but stuff like that made her acutely uncomfortable. Always had.
“Ready?” Miriam asked.
Kim nodded. They started the walk, leaving camp set up and taking only a few essentials. It was early enough in the day that they’d be back before nightfall, and they’d make better time without all their gear.
They walked in silence for a while. Miriam’s brain worked on putting all the pieces together, sifting through the facts she had, the ones she didn’t, and the ones she thought she could find. She’d started to form a theory, but she couldn’t quite fill in all the gaps. She suspected Kim could fill those in for her, though, and Miriam intended to use her working theory to draw out the truth.
“Ever heard of the dobhar-chú?” Miriam asked.
“Nope. I’ve heard of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the devil here. That is the entirety of my cryptid database.”
“It’s from Ireland. Dates back to the 1700s. A lady—her name was Grace Connolly—went out to do her laundry in a nearby lake. When she didn’t come home after a while, her husband, Terence, started getting worried about her, so he grabbed his gun and set out to find her. When he got to the usual spot, he saw her dead, disemboweled body, blood everywhere.”
“Ew.”
“Yeah. And beside her, a huge animal slept, working off the human-sized meal it had recently consumed. In a sorrowful rage, Terence lifted his gun and fired a well-aimed shot into the animal, killing it. Before it died, though, the creature let out a high-pitched scream that echoed across the lake.
“Almost immediately, the waters churned and another of the creatures rose from the depths, angry and looking for revenge. It moved surprisingly fast, almost catching Terence before he managed to mount his horse and gallop away.”
“That was close.” Kim asked, enthralled.
“Oh the story’s not over. The creature kept pace with the horse, with Terence only able to stay a few steps ahead. He rode over two counties, it’s said, before finally gaining enough ground to stop at a blacksmith for shelter. The blacksmith, being a local man of some age, knew of the dobhar-chú. He advised Terence to set a trap, offering his horse as bait. Terence could hide behind the horse, and when the creature attacked, take his chance to kill it for good.”
“So what happened?”
“Terence did as the Blacksmith instructed, putting his horse on the road, sideways to provide as much visual cover as possible. When the dobhar-chú arrived, it jumped at the horse, tearing its way through the horse’s belly almost instantly. Terence saw the head of the creature poke through the horse and saw his chance. He bound forward and, using a sword provided by the blacksmith, beheaded the dobhar-chú.”
“So what was it?”
“Well, dobhar-chú is actually old Irish for otter. So, if you’re asking my opinion, I think it was some sort of oversized otter. Some people say it’s more like an alligator. Others, some weird mix between the two. There’ve been a few more sightings over the years in different lakes, but no definitive proof, of course. It’s hard to know how true the story is. The Irish, well... they like their legends. Could just be Terence wanted to get rid of his wife without being accused of murder, and so made the whole story up. Probably equally likely, honestly.”
“Have you ever gone there? To look for it, I mean,” Kim asked.
“To Ireland?” Miriam laughed. “No. I can’t afford to go anywhere I can’t drive. Dad got a few exotic jobs when we were little, but he never took us on those trips. And he never got a call to find the dobhar-chú. I don’t imagine the Irish actually want it found. Probably worth more to them as a folktale.”
Miriam fell silent, letting the story sink in. If her theory held, this tale would prick at Kim’s conscience, subtly letting her know that Miriam had started to catch on to the deception. Miriam had a hunch that Kim knew exactly what the devil was.
“So, uh... how recently has it been sighted?” Kim spoke with self-consciousness.
“I’m not an encyclopedia,” Miriam answered.
“Are you sure? You kinda seem like one.”
Miriam ignored the insinuation—yet another comment meant as an insult that she actually took as a compliment. “Twenty years ago or so, I think. Which is relatively recently, all things considered.”
“And...” Kim’s questions were coming slower now, more carefully chosen than before. “It’s only ever been seen in Ireland?”
“Yep. Only in Ireland.”
“Is that normal? That cryptids are only in one place?”
“Yeah. For the most part. The big ones, like Bigfoot, seem to show up everywhere. But most are confined to their local legends.”
Kim laughed. “Well, this is the real home of Bigfoot, though.”
“Folks in Nepal may disagree with you, though they call it the Yeti.”
After a pause, Kim asked, “So, this dobhar-chú. Is it really dangerous? Otters aren’t terribly dangerous if you leave’em alone.”
“Who knows,” Miriam said with a shrug. “Cryptids are their own things. Their own species. Might not even be very closely related to whatever they look like. If the legend is to be believed, then they’re dangerous and have a taste for human flesh. But... there aren’t really any animals that naturally have a taste for human flesh, so it’s unlikely. Still, when an animal gets hungry enough...”
Kim grew silent. They walked on.
“Miriam?”
“Yes?”
“I have something to tell you.”
Miriam stopped. She could tell by Kim’s tone that it was something serious. The ruse had worked.
“I may not have been entirely honest with you.” Kim looked down. It was the first time Miriam had seen her so uneasy. “The reason that I got so, um, emotional about that otter is because...”
Miriam remained outwardly patient, but her mind started reeling, so sure of what Kim would say that she could hardly focus on the words coming out of her mouth.
“It’s not an otter.”
“What?” Miriam asked, not really asking for a repeat as much as an explanation.
“I mean, it looks like an otter. I know that. And maybe it is, kinda. But it was just a baby.”
Miriam knew exactly what it was. Her theory was correct, and Kim had known all along.
Kim looked up, some resolve having crept its way back in. “Ya know, I’ve been out here a lot. Like a whole lot. Not always with others. Alone too. Probably more alone than not, actually.”
“Ok...”
“The devil isn’t dangerous. It’s sweet. Gentle, even.”
“That otter... it was the devil’s pup, wasn’t it?”
Kim bit her lip and nodded.
“And that means...”
Kim smiled. One of those smiles not meant to convey happiness so much as awkwardness. “I think maybe that cryptid you were talking about—the dobhar-chú. I think it might be here. At Misty Lake. I’ve actually spent a lot of time with it. With them. With the whole family, really.”
She’d worked out that the monster they hunted was the dobhar-chú. Even that Kim had known about it. But she never expected this. Miriam had always believed that the idea of one’s jaw dropping was just an expression. But in that moment, her jaw actually dropped.
