Sean Cullen - The Prince of Neither Here Nor There

Brendan moved closer, and when he was in reach, Babka grabbed his hand in a firm, moist grip. Suddenly, she was speaking fast in Polish, her eyes bright and her face serious.

A little disturbed, Brendan asked Dmitri, “What is she saying?”

“She says that she sees a dark future for you, but it can be changed if you find what you are seeking,” Dmitri translated. “Do you think she’s talking about the amulet?”

“Ask her if she knows where to find the amulet,” Brendan said eagerly. He waited while Dmitri posed the question. The old lady pointed out the window where the sky was greying toward dawn. “Well? What did she say?”

“She says that she can’t see it. A man has hidden what you seek. She holds his face in her mind’s eye,” Dmitri said.

Brendan knelt down beside the old woman and took her hand in his own. “Can she describe this man?” Brendan waited in an agony of impatience while the question was translated. Babka started speaking, her eyes closed as she concentrated.

Dmitri translated. “He is old. With white hair. He was tall once but now he is stooped over. He is down. No, the correct way to say it would be ‘laid low.’ He’s sick? Or hurt, maybe?”

“Can’t she be more specific?”

“She says it doesn’t work that way. She sees what she sees.”

“I wish she could give us a better description. That could describe any old man at all.”

“What can I do?” Dmitri shrugged. “It’s not easy to translate accurately.”

“I wish we had one of those guys who do those drawings for the police, you know?”

“That would be helpful,” Dmitri agreed. Suddenly, his face lit up. “But we do know someone who could do that!” He went to the phone and started dialling.

“Wait a minute! Who are you calling?”

“Harold! He could do it!”

Brendan crossed the room in two strides, plunking his finger down on the phone to cut off the call. “No!” he said quickly. “I can’t do that! It would mean that I’d have to tell him everything. It’s bad enough that I had to tell you.”

“Harold is your friend,” Dmitri whispered. “You can trust him.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust him,” Brendan said. “I don’t want to put any more people in danger. Orcadia isn’t exactly a fun person to have breathing down your neck, Dmitri.”

Dmitri frowned. “The way I see it, if you don’t find this amulet soon, you won’t survive. I know that Harold wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you. We’re your friends. You have to let us help.” Dmitri lifted Brendan’s finger off the receiver. “Besides, you don’t have to tell him what’s going on. He just has to draw the picture.”

Brendan weighed Dmitri’s argument and found that he couldn’t fault his friend’s logic. He needed to at least know what the old man looked like if he wanted to have a hope of ever finding the amulet. He looked at Dmitri and nodded. “Okay. But we don’t say anything about what’s happened to me. He just draws the picture, right?”

“Of course,” Dmitri said gleefully and dialled Harold’s cell.

Twenty minutes later, Harold was sitting on the sofa beside Dmitri’s babka, his tablet open and his charcoal in hand. He’d been awake when Dmitri had called, sitting up waiting to draw the sunrise from his back balcony. He’d ridden his bike over right away when he heard that Brendan was okay and he needed help.

The old woman had sat patiently on the sofa under her blankets while they were waiting for Harold. Her eyes glowed with excitement. She chatted quietly with BLT, giggling like a little girl.

“You speak Polish?” Brendan asked the little Faerie.

“Sure,” BLT said. “It’s a fun language, very expressive. Lots of interesting swear words.”

Brendan had insisted that BLT hide in his pocket when Harold arrived. A giant fly would probably be hard to explain.

“Brendan,” Harold said when he came into the living room. “Dude, you’re okay! I was worried. I mean, after Chester Dallaire disappeared, I thought maybe there was some kidnapping ring operating in town or something.”

At the mention of Chester, Brendan felt a cold lump of guilt in his gut. He would have to take care of that if he made it through this in one piece. “No, I’m fine. But I need your help.”

Harold listened as they detailed what they needed him to do. When asked if he could draw a composite sketch from Dmitri’s instructions, he shrugged and said, “I can try. I’ve never really done it before although I do a lot of portrait work… but that’s mostly of my mum’s friends’ pets.”

“Great!” Brendan groaned. “This will never work.”

“Let’s try,” Dmitri insisted. “Babka?”

“Tak?” Babka asked.

So, for the next forty minutes as the sky turned from black to grey, Dmitri tried to translate his babka’s description of the man she saw in her vision. Harold went through a whole pad of sketch paper. The job wasn’t made any easier by the fact that Babka’s eyesight wasn’t the best. Each time Harold held up his work for her to critique, she would squint and shake her head. Harold would then begin again, scratching and smudging with his charcoal, trying to get the right combination of strokes that would satisfy Babka’s inner eye. Brendan and Dmitri watched over Harold’s shoulder as he worked.

Finally, Babka announced that she was satisfied. The picture was as accurate as she could make it. The old woman was obviously exhausted.

Harold held up the picture for Brendan to see. He studied the picture closely. The drawing depicted a man with craggy features. His eyes were deep set under heavy brows. The mouth was a chiselled line, and the jaw was heavy and straight.

“Does he look familiar?” Dmitri asked urgently. “Think hard.”

“There’s something,” Brendan breathed. The face did look familiar somehow. It was right at the tip of his brain, so close as to be annoying. “There’s something…” Suddenly, he had an idea. “Hey, Harold. Could you draw a hat on the guy?”

“What kind of hat?”

“One of those flat ones that old guys wear, like a squashed pancake sort of, with a brim on the front. You know what I mean?”

Harold nodded. “I think so.” He sketched a few lines on the drawing, superimposing a flat herringbone cap on the man’s head.

Brendan’s eyes lit up. He turned to Dmitri. “When we first asked her about the guy, what did she say? He’d fallen?”

“She saw him falling and hitting his head.”

He’d seen someone fall and hit his head. Just the day before yesterday, the old man had been hit by the bike courier. “It’s Finbar!” he said softly.

The old woman squeezed his hand and beamed. “Tak! Tak! Finbar! To on!”

“Yes! Yes! Finbar! That’s it!” Dmitri said excitedly.

“Couldn’t she have just told me his name in the first place?” Brendan said, exasperated.

The woman spoke and Dmitri translated. “She says she didn’t have it until you spoke it. Now she knows that it’s right.”

Harold interjected. “You sound like you know the guy. Do you know where he is?”

Brendan nodded, his heart sinking. “The last time I saw him, he was on his way to Western General Hospital.”

“Listen, why don’t you guys just go home?”

They were approaching the front of the hospital. The sun was higher now, but it gave no heat. Dmitri had thought far enough ahead to tell Harold to bring an extra jacket for Brendan. “I don’t want to drag anybody else into this. It’s too dangerous.”

“You still haven’t told me anything,” Harold complained. “Why do you need to find this guy? Who’s after you? Why don’t you just go to the cops or call your mum and dad?”