David Baldacci - The Keeper

“Tricky, tricky, dearie, dearie.”

I whirled on him. “If you start that load-a tosh with me again, you’re going to see a dicky fit, Seamus the hob, that you will never bloody forget!”

His face fell and he said tersely, “All right, all right, don’t wad your knickers. Follow me.” We strode single file toward the glow. We stopped within a foot of it and even in the dark I could perceive the outline of a structure within.

“The cottage?” I said, glancing down at Seamus.

He nodded and said with a heavy breath, “The cottage.”

“What now?” I asked.

I watched as Seamus took a tentative step forward, but then he stopped and turned to look back at me.

“Well?” I said expectantly. “Budge along.”

“Give me a mo’,” he said. “Why are you in such a bleedin’ hurry anyways?”

“Oh, I dunno, maybe because we’re standing in the middle of a raging storm IN THE BLOODY QUAG!”

“Okay, okay, I sees your point.” He took several deep breaths.

“Oh, for the love of Alvis Alcumus!” I walked straight into the green glow.

“Oi! Wait!” he shouted.

Harry Two instantly followed and we passed clean through. I turned and looked back at Seamus, who was jumping up and down and gesticulating madly. I reached back through the greenish glow, gripped his hand and pulled him through so he stood next to us inside the emerald dome.

I let go of his hand and stared down at him. His eyes were scrunched closed and he was shivering like he’d been pitched into icy water.

“Uh, Seamus?” I began.

He made a frantic motion for me to shush. Then, little by little, he opened his great, bulbous eyes and stared around. When he realized where he was, he exclaimed in a scolding tone, “Now look what you gone and done.”

“ You brought us here.”

“But I didn’t tell you to just barge right in. Why, when I think what coulda—”

“What exactly was I supposed to do?” I interrupted sharply.

“Why, you barmy git, wait while I got things sorted out, that’s bloody what.”

“Well, they’re sorted out. We’re inside. Now, where’s the cottage?”

I had been looking around, but the outline of the structure I had seen from outside the green glow was no longer evident from inside it.

He pointed to his left. “Let’s try over there.”

“Try over there?” I said blankly. “I thought you’d been here before.”

“Well, I have. I mean I been to the green glow, o’course.”

“Wait, are you telling me you’ve never been inside the green glow?”

“G’on with ya, what cheek. Why, I ask you.”

“I am asking you. How many times have you been inside the green glow?”

He looked upward and seemed to be counting off something in his head. He held up a solitary finger. “Well, countin’ this time, it comes to, um, one.”

“One!” I roared.

He leapt back at my shout. “Well, did you give me a chance? No. You just charged on in. Coulda killed us all.”

“So when I walked through the green glow, I could have been killed?”

“And on your head it would have been too.”

“Oh, bugger off!” I cried out, and went in search of a cottage that may or may not contain a “nice” female who might or might not eat us the sliver she laid eyes on us.

“You’re a right shonky git, Seamus,” I called back over my shoulder.

“Trog!” he yelled back.

“Pillock,” I screamed in return before hurrying along. Then I stopped. I had just realized something. It was not raining in here. I looked up. There was no storm. No wind. I felt like I was walking along a heated path. It made me feel... comforted. We kept walking and cleared a knoll. When we raced down its other side, I saw it.

The cottage. It had a thatch roof, mortared stones for walls and an oval solid-wood door with a light shining through the small square opening at the top of it. There was a short, crazy-angled flagstone path that led to the door.

Gathering my courage, I stepped up onto the block of old blackened stone that formed a rough porch and looked cautiously through the window in the door. Then I suddenly leapt back off the stone and stood there shivering. The door had opened, apparently all by itself.

When I thought things could not get stranger, I heard an imperious voice.

“You may enter,” it said. I looked around for the source of the voice, but saw nothing. Still, the voice hadn’t sounded particularly threatening. I looked behind me once more and there was a goggle-eyed Seamus standing barely ten feet away. The bloke looked ready to vomit. I probably looked the same.

“It said to enter,” I told him nervously.

“W-well, then y-you b-best do what it s-says, eh?”

“Are you coming?” I demanded.

He puffed out his chest and said in a strident voice, “I think I’ll keep watch out here, dearie, dearie. Don’t want nothing sneakin’ up on you, does old Seamus.” He gave a crisp little salute.

“Prat,” I muttered under my breath, and then I let out a long, resigned sigh. Of all the hobs I could run into, I had to run into this one.

I stepped forward into the cottage, Harry Two right next to me. As soon as we had done so, the door swung closed and I heard a lock click into place. I grabbed at the door handle and tried to open it. But even though I had Destin around my waist and my strength was greatly enhanced, the door wouldn’t budge.

I turned back around. “Hello?” I said, first in a low voice that could barely be heard even by me. Then I said more loudly, “Hello!”

Nothing.

I looked around. The furniture I saw — a table, a chair and a cupboard — was all small and low to the floor, which was wooden and looked about a thousand sessions old. There was a large clock on the wall whose hands never stopped moving. They whirled around and around the face of the clock. I drew closer and saw that the hands were actually two black snakes inexplicably hardened. Then, when I saw that the face of the clock was actually the flattened countenance of a garm, I leapt back and nearly upset the table, on which was a plate, a cup and utensils all made from tin.

Maybe the female here was actually evil. Maybe Seamus had tricked me. I promised myself if I got out of this cottage alive, I would strangle him.

Gathering my nerves, I said sharply, “Oi, is anyone about in this ruddy place?”

I nearly jumped to the ceiling when it, or she — I wasn’t exactly sure what — appeared directly in front of me.

Harry Two barked once and then went silent. I grabbed my chest to try and push my heart back into its proper place. “Holy Steeples,” I panted, bent over, all my breath suddenly gone. “Where the blazes did you come from?” I wheezed.

She — now I was sure it was a she — looked back at me. She was small, barely taller than Seamus, which put her at right about my belly button. She was young, maybe twenty sessions, and her black hair hung limply around her shoulders. Her face was oval and her nose, eyes and mouth all small and finely drawn. Her expression was one of mild curiosity mixed with indifference, which struck me as quite odd. I mean, how many Wugs did she have turn up in her digs with a canine in tow? She wore an emerald-colored shawl over a long black cloak.

She kept staring at me with that same curious yet ambivalent expression.

“I’m Vega,” I said. “This is my canine, Harry Two.”

She looked first at me, then at Harry Two, and then her gaze returned to me.

“I am Astrea Prine,” she said, in the same voice that had told me to enter.

“Seamus the hob told me about you and your cottage. I need you to help me find my friend, Delph.”

“Delph?” she said questioningly.