The Boggart Fights Back Page 17
A deep voice called, “Mr. Trout, was it the many local people opposing your development who challenged you about these plants?”
“I haven’t heard anyone opposing, and I told you, we heard about them from experts,” Trout said crossly.
“Who are your experts, Mr. Trout?” called the first reporter.
“I don’t have their names with me,” Trout said. “We’ll post those on our website too. They’re very, very well respected, world-famous among environmentalists.”
“If you’re so concerned about the environment,” said the deep voice, “why didn’t you know about these plants before?”
William Trout took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. “Isn’t it a beautiful day?” he said. “Such a beautiful place, I’m so, so sorry to have to leave it. In answer to your question, sir, our environmental scientists did an immensely thorough survey of this area, but they failed to notice these plants. Everyone makes a mistake now and then.”
“Can’t you build around the plants?” called another voice.
William Trout looked shocked. “Certainly not!” he said. “This is their habitat! You might say”—and he shook his head with a sad little smile—“they beat me. They got here first! Nobody beats the Trout, but three little plants managed it!”
His left shoulder gave a massive twitch, and his smile disappeared.
“Surely they aren’t going to believe all this!” said Tom in his father’s ear.
Granda said softly, “Mr. Trout is an inventive man.”
A woman’s voice called, “If ye’re leavin’, what about the damage ye’ve done tae our coastline?”
William Trout ran his hand over his shining head. “A restored area will be my gift to the people of Argyll and Bute. The dirt hill over there, the berm, that was created to protect the view of Mr. Angus Cameron—”
“What!” said Jay indignantly. “It was the opposite!”
“Hush,” said his father, “don’t confuse him with facts.”
“—that berm will be demolished to create a gentle slope, as an area of public parkland. A charitable donation.”
“Does this include your whole acreage?” demanded the voice.
“No, no,” said Mr. Trout swiftly. “The farm fields will be sold or rented, and farmed, as they should be. And”—he raised a hand dramatically—“this enlarged jetty behind me, which would have been the basis for a state-of-the-art marina, will be left for the owners of Castle Keep.”
Tom said in Granda’s ear, “As compensation for the money he now won’t pay to buy the place.”
“So where will you build the new resort now?” called the deep voice. “Will it still be in Scotland?”
“No!” said William Trout very fast. Get away from Scotland, said his mind to him, loudly, insistently. Got to get away from that Thing, and never come back. He swallowed, and took a deep breath. “We’re in the process of buying one of the sites we looked at before we came here,” he said. “It’s in Ireland, near Curracloe Beach in Wexford. Beautiful beaches, and wonderful views. A beautiful unspoiled place.”
“And will you have local support there?”
“Of course!” said Mr. Trout crossly. “I’m leaving tomorrow to go there, to Ireland, and I expect to have a great reception. Everyone knows the Trout Corporation is good for business.”
“But a massive petition has been circulating here in Argyll in opposition to your resort,” the deep voice said. “My paper’s had hundreds o’ calls an’ letters!”
“So have we!” shouted another, and a confusion of voices began calling out.
“Let’s go home before we get into the news,” Granda said quietly, and they backed out of the crowd and managed to reach the store before anybody noticed them.
“D’you think the Boggart was there?” Allie said.
“Maybe,” Granda said. “Or maybe he and Nessie are over by the rocks having a good time with the seals.”
“What about the Nuckelavee?” said Jay.
His father said, “Mr. Trout must be hoping very much that it’s gone back to wherever it came from.”
“I do too,” Allie said.
TWENTY
But the Nuckelavee was still in Loch Linnhe—living under the water, as all sea creatures do. Nobody saw it, except the boggarts and the seals, and the unfortunate fish that it sometimes ate. Though it was clearly a very Wild Thing and spoke to the Boggart and Nessie only in short bursts, and at long intervals, they felt that it regarded them not perhaps as friends, but at least as non-enemies. Mr. Trout’s boat had left the loch very soon after the press conference, but the Nuckelavee remained. It enjoyed swimming with the seals, and now understood that its two boggart companions were quite often swimming there too in the shape of seals, even though most of the time they were no more than voices, invisible.
And the Boggart was in seal shape on the day that Allie and Jay came to the Seal Rocks with their father to say good-bye. Clouds hung low over the loch but the wind was light, and Tom brought the boat close to the rocks. A curious herring gull swooped overhead, keening. As they bobbed there, a head rose from the water nearby, looking at them; they could see the whiskers and the round dark eyes, though not the very faint silver tinge of the skin that told the other seals that this was a boggart.
They heard his voice in the air, as always, not from his seal mouth.
“Nessie’s away over there with the Nuckelavee,” he said. “Keeping it calm. The fellow’s not safe near people, you know that.”
“We have to go back home to Canada, Boggart,” Allie said. She sniffed. “We’ll miss you. We came to say good-bye. And thank you.”
“Aye,” said the Boggart, for whom time and distance did not mean as much as they do to us.
“We ‘re coming back next year,” Jay said.
Tom Cameron said, “Tell Nessie thank you as well, Boggart.”
The seal’s head ducked below the water and did not come up again, and each of them in turn felt on one cheek the soft touch that was the brush of a boggart’s hand. The husky voice came out of the air once more.
“We’re going on a wee trip, Nessie and me,” the Boggart said. “To Ireland. To a place near Curracloe Beach in Wexford, with beautiful beaches and wonderful views. A beautiful unspoiled place, which should remain unspoiled.”
His voice began to fade, as he flittered away.
He said, “We’re taking the Nuckelavee.”
AFTERWORD
Scotland’s Loch Linnhe is indeed as beautiful as this book shows it to be, but I apologize once more to the inhabitants of Port Appin for changing its geography, and to the owners of Castle Stalker for turning it into Castle Keep. My thanks to Sìm Innes for his advice on Gaelic.
The creatures called up for the Boggart I did not invent; they’re part of Scottish legend, as documented by the wonderful folklorist Katharine Briggs, and you can hear their names pronounced at http://learngaelic.net. The Blue Men of the Minch were believed to cause frequent storms around the Shiant Islands, where they lived underwater and preyed on passing ships; one theory held that they were “based on the Moorish captives called ‘Blue Men’ who were marooned in Ireland in the ninth century by Norwegian pirates.” And the Each-Uisge (pronounced ech-ooshga, with the ch as in loch) is the most alarming of many legendary Highland water horses, haunting the sea and lochs.
As for the horrifying Nuckelavee, “he came out of the sea,” says Ms. Briggs, “and spread evil wherever he went, blighting crops, destroying livestock and killing every man whom he could encounter.” He is even nastier in legend than he is in my book. And the Caointeach (pronounced kane-chuch, with the first ch as in chat and the second as in loch) who calls up these creatures is an Argyll version of the Highland banshee; her name means “wailer,” though unlike the banshee she does not, in my story, have “no nose and just one monstrous tooth.”
She does love bacon, though. I’m the only person who knows that. This is one of the special pleasures of being an author who wr
ites fantasy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SUSAN COOPER is the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement. Her classic five-book fantasy sequence The Dark Is Rising won the Newbery Medal and a Newbery Honor and has sold millions of copies worldwide. She is also the author of Victory, a Booklist Top Ten Historical Fiction for Youth book and a Washington Post Top Ten for Children novel; King of Shadows, a Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Honor Book; The Boggart; The Boggart and the Monster; Seaward; Ghost Hawk; and many other acclaimed novels for young readers and listeners. She lives in Massachusetts, and you can visit her online at TheLostLand.com.
Margaret K. McElderry Books
Simon & Schuster • New York
Visit us at simonandschuster.com/kids
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Susan-Cooper
ALSO BY SUSAN COOPER
* * *
The Dark Is Rising Sequence
Over Sea, Under Stone
The Dark Is Rising
Greenwitch
The Grey King
Silver on the Tree
Ghost Hawk
Green Boy
Seaward
Victory
The Boggart
The Boggart and the Monster
King of Shadows
The Magician’s Boy
The Silver Cow
MARGARET K. McELDERRY BOOKS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2018 by Susan Cooper
Jacket illustration copyright © 2018 by Stacy Curtis
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The text for this book was set in Palatino.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cooper, Susan, 1935– author.
Title: The Boggart fights back / Susan Cooper.
Description: First edition. | New York : Margaret K. McElderry Books, [2018] | Series: The Boggart | Summary: Allie, Jay, the Boggart, and his cousin Nessie strive to stop an American developer from destroying their home, even if that means waking up deadly Old Magic creatures.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017017803 | ISBN 9781534406292 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781534406315 (eBook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Magic—Fiction. | Americans—Scotland—Fiction. | Imaginary creatures—Fiction. | Loch Ness monster—Fiction. | Scotland—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Fairy Tales & Folklore / General. | JUVENILE FICTION / Fantasy & Magic. | JUVENILE FICTION / Action & Adventure / General.
Classification: LCC PZ7.C7878 Bt 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017017803