Chapter Eight

 

 

 

We sat at the big table in the kitchen and I made coffee. The light was turning grainy outside, and the blackbird had come back to sing its long, intricate song from the chimney pot.

Sebastian said, “When are you expecting your parents back?”

I looked at the clock over the cooker and said, “Maybe an hour. Maybe a bit more.”

He sighed. “I think you should tell me everything from the start. There has to be a clue in there somewhere as to what this quest is and who the old man is.”

I nodded. “Okay, and thanks, Sebastian. I appreciate not having to do this alone.”

He smiled. “It’s what friends are for, old chap. You’d do the same for me.”

It wasn’t a question, and he was right. I said, “Yeah. I would.”

So I told him, from the start, everything that had happened since we’d arrived in Oxford. He sat back and closed his eyes, as though he’d fallen into a deep sleep, but I knew he was using the old Sherlock Holmes technique of totally relaxing his body so that his mind could absorb everything. I finally came to the point where he’d turned up that afternoon, and I shrugged and said, “And you know the rest.”

He remained with his eyes closed for another minute then opened them slowly.

“Go back in your mind, Jake, to the time Gorm first appeared to you. Just relax and remember, what were you doing and thinking?”

I sat back and it was my turn to close my eyes. “I’d just gotten back from school. Dad and Rosie were at a drinks party at the dean’s. I went out into the back garden.”

“What made you do that, Jake?”

I smiled. “I wanted to think about Ciara. I remember I was smelling the flowers and listening to the blackbird and was thinking I wished it was a lark…or a nightingale.” I was silent for a minute. Then I said, “You can stop smirking. It was a momentary thing. I’m not a sissy.”

He seemed not to hear me. He said, “Now, focus on the moment just before Gorm appeared to you.”

“I was standing by the pond. The blackbird was on the chimney. I was thinking about Ciara’s eyes and how incredibly green they are. Then the air began to shimmer…”

I talked on for a bit then Sebastian’s voice gently interrupted me. “That’s very good, Jake. Now, I want you to come forward in time to this afternoon, and I want you to go back into the garden to a few moments before Gorm appeared.”

“I was pretty mad. I came through the house with one thought on my mind. I was going to call up Gorm and make him explain what the hell was going on.”

“How did you do that?”

I paused. “I couldn’t. I called him, but he wouldn’t come.”

“So, what did you do, Jake?”

“I don’t know. I started to remember the first time he appeared. I had been thinking about Ciara and how green her eyes were—”

“And when you started thinking about her?”

“The air changed to a shimmering green.”

“Okay, Jake, just take a nice, deep breath, wiggle your fingers and your toes, and when you’re ready, open your eyes.”

I did those things and stared at him. “Did you hypnotize me?”

“I relaxed you quite deeply with my voice. Do you see the importance of what you remembered?”

I sat forward. “Ciara.”

He nodded. “He appears when you stand by the arbor and think about Ciara.”

“Why?”

“We may not have found the answer, old chap, but we seem to have found the question.”

“Why?”

He shook his head. “‘Why’ is the open question to end all open questions. Never ask ‘why?’ There is no answer to ‘why?’ The question is ‘what?’ What is it about Ciara that causes this portal—or whatever it is—to open when you think about her in that particular place?”

I stared at him, shook my head, shrugged and spread my hands. I think I conveyed that I had no idea.

He smiled. “Well, no point thinking about what we don’t know. So what do we know? We can say that there must be some special connection between the two of you. What quantum physicists would call a ‘quantum entanglement’.”

I smiled. “I like that.”

“I thought you might. We have no idea how parallel universes work, but a constant in quantum physics and relativity is the effect of consciousness on reality. So, when you think of her—”

“It affects the reality field!”

He smiled. “If you like. Think of this, also, Jake. When the two shape-shifting leprechauns struck—”

“I was with her.”

He nodded. “Indeed, you were. I think you’ll find that she is integral to this whole thing.”

I frowned. “But why?”

“That’s impossible to answer and impossible to find out. ‘How’, on the other hand, might be easier. Think about it, Jake. What do you know about her?”

I thought. “Not a lot.”

“Well, as I say, not much point thinking about what you don’t know. But what do you know?”

I stood up and started pacing, the way they do in movies. It actually does help you think. I said, “I know she’s an only child, and I know she lives alone with her dad.”

“Rather like you.”

I glanced at him. “Yeah…” I carried on. “Her dad is super-protective and keeps a real tight hold on her. It was almost impossible to meet up today, but she swung it. And she said that because of her dad, it was hard for her to have friends, much less…” I made a ‘you know what I mean’ gesture with my hand.

He said, “Go out with anybody.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that.”

“What happened to her mother?”

“I don’t know. But I do know her dad is a big shot in politics. Michael Fionn. He’s a—”

“He’s the guy.”

“What?”

“He’s the guy. He’s the man who’s going to get kidnapped by this Aren, and it’s up to you to protect him—hence the link with Ciara, his daughter.”

“How the hell am I going to do that…by next Friday? That’s less than a week! And anyway, Sebastian, how can you be sure? Who would want to kidnap—?”

“The chief consultant to the EU on environmental issues? Do you read the news?”

I sat down, feeling a bit sheepish. “Well, not really, no.”

“Well, let me suggest that in the future you take a little more interest in the world you live in, Mr. Norgard. Michael Fionn has always been the ultimate man in gray, working behind the scenes while the big personalities get all the limelight. But he is a real mover and shaker. He makes things happen. He is very powerful and very influential.”

I made a face and while I wondered what the hell I was getting into with Ciara, I asked, “Okay, but how does that make him a target for kidnapping by shape-shifting leprechauns?”

“He has recently sprang into the public eye because he is due to address the European Commission next week on whether they should sanction drilling for oil in the Arctic Circle. Huge oil reserves have been found there, but when everybody is talking about phasing out fossil fuels and saving polar bears, drilling for oil in the Arctic seems a tad controversial. There is a very powerful lobby saying the EU should put that money into green research for sustainable energy. But there are also vested interests that stand to make billions if the drilling goes ahead.”

I nodded. Something was making sense but I wasn’t sure what it was. I said, “And what does Michael Fionn say?”

“Precisely. He is playing it very close to his chest, but the word is that he is going to advise they go ahead and drill. It’s odd. For many years, he was an advocate behind the scenes for a greener world, but lately he seems to have been drifting the other way.”

I screwed up my face and scratched my head, seeing Sebastian suddenly in a different light. “How do you know all this?”

He laughed. “I pay attention, my dear chap! The holy trinity—attention, concentration, observation. And another thing keeps leaping out at me.”

I frowned. “What?”

“The color green. Green eyes, green sea, the Emerald Isle, green issues…”

“Holy sh—!”

I stood.

Sebastian said, “What is it?”

I turned to face him. “It’s not her dad.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not her dad! It’s her!”

“I’m not following you.”

“We need to find out who Aren is, because he has a vested interest in the advice Michael Fionn gives the EU Commission. He probably stands to make millions, even billions, on the outcome. So, he is going to kidnap Ciara to put pressure on her dad to give the advice he wants him to give!” We stared at each other for a long moment. I shook my head. “He hasn’t been drifting. He is as green as he has ever been, but he is being threatened and pressured, and that is why he has become so protective of his daughter. That is why she knows she can’t have friends or—”

“A boyfriend.”

I nodded. “Yes, that.”

He leaned back in his chair, watching me. “So, what on earth are you going to do?”

I thought about it but not for very long. “I have to talk to Ciara. If I can’t get to her tomorrow, then Monday, come what may. I have to get her alone and tell her everything. And whatever happens, on Friday I have to be with her the whole time.”

“Good luck with that, old chum. You have your work cut out for you. What about Thursday night after midnight? And what about Friday night?”

I set my jaw. “I’ll sleep in the grounds of the house if I have to.”

He smiled. “I very much fear you’ll have to. I can’t see old man Fionn inviting you into his daughter’s bedroom. Can you?”

I had to admit I couldn’t.

Dad and Rosie came in shortly after that and Sebastian was as easy and charming as though they had been friends forever. He had the weird ability to behave with people twice his age as though he were twice his own age. Though I had the uncomfortable feeling when he spoke to Rosie that they were, actually, only a few years apart.

She invited him to stay for tea and we sat on the terrace within sight of the pond, the weeping willow and the arbor. As she offered him a salmon and cucumber sandwich, she said, “Pendrake, is that the Cornish Pendrakes?”

He twitched an eyebrow, but that was as close as he came to showing surprise. “Yes, as far as I know, there are only us and the Devonshire Pendrakes, but we don’t talk about them.”

It was obviously an inside joke because only he and Rosie laughed.

Dad said, “Why’s that?”

He was smiling when he answered. “They supported Cromwell in the Civil War. The Cornish Pendrakes, the oldest branch of the family, supported the Crown.”

Dad smiled and shook his head, like he’d never understand the Brits. “You make it sound like yesterday. Wasn’t that 1642?”

Rosie laughed. “That is yesterday!”

Dad rolled his eyes at me and I smiled.

Rosie turned back to Sebastian. “I believe the Pendrakes are one of the oldest families in England, aren’t they?”

He was looking at her a bit fixedly, like he was wondering why she was asking him all this. He said, “There are references to a Celtic Chieftain called Pendrake in Saxon documents going back about fifteen hundred years.”

She smiled as she sipped her tea. There was something oddly mischievous about her eyes. “The mighty Uther Pendrake, whose clan were said to have come from Ireland in the dawn of time. I knew your grandfather.”

Now, he looked surprised. “Really? But surely…”

She stood. “Oh, there’s the kettle. Excuse me.”

Sebastian glanced at me. Dad was lost in a sandwich. The blackbird went crazy for a minute. Sebastian said, “And I really ought to be getting back. Mr. Norgard, a pleasure to meet you. See you again, no doubt.” And to me, “Jake, see me out, will you?”

We bumped into Rosie on the way to the door and they said brief farewells. At the door, I said to Sebastian, “What the hell was that all about?”

He smiled urbanely and dismissed it. “The English, old chap. We’re obsessed with our own language and our ancestry. Very unseemly. Let’s try to meet up tomorrow and discuss this business with Ciara. There has to be a more sensible solution than camping out in the old man’s garden.”

I watched him walk down the drive and wondered how much weirder things could become.