The Luck of the Irish (3)

[Cornelia_Africana]

When Saoirse arrived at the stone circle the next morning, she was astonished to find it cordoned off, several police vans at the site, and that extraordinary man in the Edwardian frock-coat called the Doctor and his companion arguing with a Garda Inspector.

“I’m sorry Miss”, the Inspector said as she approached. “There’ll be no tours here today. The site is now the scene of a murder inquiry – one of the UNESCO team was murdered here last night.”

“You’re joking!”

”I’m afraid not.” He turned back to the Doctor and Katsumi. “Look, sir , it’s not just a matter of Mr. Arikado being, by his own admission, the only person found at the scene of the crime..” (“I found his body, I was the one who contacted you”, Katsumi put in,outraged) “He claims to be a Japanese citizen, but has no passport, and no means of identification. And neither, sir, do you.”

“Our vehicle…er, had a breakdown yesterday...our things are inside it” the Doctor flustered, obviously lying.

“Oh really, sir? And where would your vehicle be now?”

“Well…” The Doctor didn’t like using hypnotism, but he was beginning to feel that it might be the only way out of this situation. It was worrying enough that his TARDIS had been dragged off course, drained of power, and was being held immobile by something that he couldn’t detect – it was at present in the woods near the campsite behind the village - without the problem of Katsumi being taken in for questioning. Fortunately, at that moment, there was an interruption.

“Perhaps I can be of some assistance” a voice tinged with a French accent said. “Allow me to introduce myself. Professor Francois Lacombe, of the Department of Archaeology , the Sorbonne, Paris.” Saoirse was impressed. She had read several of Lacombe’s book, and indeed several were on sale in the village museum. He gave an impressive array of papers to the officer. “ Officer, have you considered interviewing any of our team yet?”

“We hadn’t got round to it.”

“I would suggest that that might be a more fruitful approach than holding this young man. After all, someone who knows him would have more motive to murder him than a complete stranger.You have no actual evidence against this young man, do you?”

“True, but there’s still the matter that these people have no identification…”

“If I agree to be accountable for them, will you let them go for the present?”

“You’ll have to take full responsibility for their conduct.”

“I will”. Francois turned to Katsumi. “Are you quite sure you didn’t see anyone else last night?”

“Quite. He was still conscious when I found him though.. he was muttering ….it’s really not to be taken seriously…”

“In my experience, most things are to be taken seriously.”

”Well… he was muttering something about having seen one of the Tuatha de Danaan.”

“Of course!” the Doctor put in. “And last night was the full moon – the time when the Tuatha de Danaan are said to haunt the Mound!”

The officer looked at him with a mixture of incredulity and sympathy. “Now, sir, you’re not trying to tell me that this man was killed by one of the fairy folk?” The Irish have a healthy respect for the fairy folk, but seldom let it intefere with the practicalities of life.

“No, of course not!” the Doctor replied, shaking his head a little sheepishly. Suddenly there was an interruption. One of the Gardai, who had been leaning against a standing stone, jumped forward.

“What the…?” He turned and glared at the stone as though it was alive. “It just gave me an electric shock!”

“Oh, a lot of our visitors report that” Saoirse put in. “It’s the quartz.”

”Quartz is piezo-electric”, the Doctor added. “If you subject it to pressure, it generates an electric current. And subject to an electric field, its molecules vibrate millions of times a second. It’s why it’s used so much in modern technology.”

“Sometimes, it causes a build up of static electricity in the stones, which discharges itself through whoever is nearest!” Saoirse continued.

“It’s interesting, isn’t it?” said Francois. “All over the world, from Ireland to Japan, you find megalithic monuments – and all of them built from stone with a high quartz content.”

“Well, let that be as it may” said the Inspector. ”We’ll be off to the manor house then, Professor. Just remember, you’re responsible for them.”

As soon as they were alone, Francois turned to the Doctor. “There’s just one thing puzzling me about all this…murder. It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing one of the wise and learned Tuatha de Danaan would do.”

“No, you’re right,” the Doctor replied. “they were always good in the legends.”

Saoirse looked from one to the other. What was this – a Doctor and a Professor from the Sorbonne talking about the fairy folk as though they were real?

“Strange”, she said. “You don’t – either of you – think it’s wholly impossible, do you?”

“Well, it’s not quite that simple” the Doctor said. “Something - we don’t quite know what – has probably been happening at the Mound for centuries, and it’s been woven into local legends as the activities of the fairy folk. Whatever it is, it’s not wholly out of the question that it has something to do with the events of last night” And with what’s happened to my TARDIS, he added mentally. “We just have to find out what. Saoirse, there’s a museum in the village, isn’t there? Do you think you could find out anything about odd goings on at the Mound over the years from there? Folklore, snippets in the press, anything. Doesn’t matter how odd it is.”

She nodded. “I could do that. By the way, if you’re interested in fairy lore, you ought to go down to the village. There’s an old man, name of O’Reilly, living there, who knows more about the fairy folk than anyone else in the neighbourhood.”

Francois nodded. “I have already had much fruitful conversation with Monsieur O’Reilly. Doctor, Katsumi, perhaps we should visit him together now.”

As they set off Katsumi whispered “Doctor, do you think we can trust this guy?”

”Well, he knows – or suspects – more than he’s saying. But at the moment I don’t think we have any alternative.”

Francois came within earshot. “By the way Doctor,” he said. “If you happen to meet our team leader, Giles, stay as far away from him as possible. He’s not a pleasant man.”

[Cornelia_Africana]

Giles was, at that moment, preparing for an encounter with the being that controlled him. He was shaking with fear, after the failed attempt of the previous night. He had not meant to kill David, but as he had been on the top of the Mound, preparing for the ceremony that would, as his master put it, “tear aside the veil between the worlds”, he saw his colleague wandering around the stone circle below him. With his nerves already overwrought, he had panicked and scrambled down the Mound, and struck him on the head with a large stone – he knew now that the blow had killed him. He had then returned to the Mound but the exact moment of the full moon had passed, and the ceremony could not now be completed. He dreaded what would happen to him, but he knew it could not be put off. In his darkened room, he opened the box, and prostrated himself on the floor as the glowing crystalline structure emerged.

“Fool!” the voice hissed. “The moment passed. The attempt was a failure.”

Giles grovelled, expecting to be struck dead. To his surprise, nothing happened.

“I’m sorry…I was afraid we would be disturbed”, he stammered. “Look, you have to help m!. The man I killed… the humans are looking for the murderer. My footprints are all over the Mound, my DNA will be on the stone I used….help me!”

The light shimmered eerily, and the voice when it sounded again, was even more evil. “The attempt failed…. therefore we must try again. Yes. The veil has thinned….not enough to allow me to pass through…but other things can pass through. We will give the humans a diversion….and at the same time lay a trap for the Doctor…a trap that will finally enable me to emerge, and take my rightful place as ruler of the universe!”

* * *

When the Doctor and his friends arrived at the home of the old man O’Reilly, they had met an old man with a shock of white hair, and a lined, benevolent faced, who had regaled them throughout the afternoon with his stories of the fairy folk.

“The grandest folk you’ll ever meet,” he said. “Taller than us, always in white, always fair and noble looking”.

“We have stories about beings like that where I come from” said Katsumi. “We call them kami. Funnily enough, they’re supposed to live around stone circles, too”

“And you say they’re like mortals in other respects” said the Doctor. “They eat, they drink, they can have children.”

“To be sure, but they only eat fresh food and drink pure water. Sometimes they take mortal children away too, and transmute the human body to one like their own, leaving one of their own in the mortal child’s place.”

“Mmmm, the fairy changeling” said the Doctor. He was well acquainted with the legend, but there was something else on his mind. He looked carefully at O’Reilly. “Excuse me, but I can’t help wondering…. have we met before?”

“And where and when would that be, Doctor?”

“I’m not sure….my memory is usually good..” he shook his head.”It’s probably nothing”.

At that moment there was a knock on the door and Saoirse entered, with a pile of photocopies in her hands.

“Doctor, you asked me to find out if there were any reports of strange goings on at the Mound over the centuries. I’ve found some going back to the seventeenth century. Apparently there have been many cases of people going missing at the site. According to local legend, they were carried off by the fairies. The most recent was only fifty years ago.” She handed him a copy of a newspaper report. “A ten year old boy out walking his dog vanished without trace at the stone circle. No body was ever found, no evidence of a struggle or of foul play. Simply vanished as though he had never existed.” She paused.

“But there’s something even odder than that. In some of the older tales, the people who disappear don’t disappear never to return. They come back. The only problem is – they come back fifty, sixty, seventy years after they vanish – and they don’t look a day older than on the day they vanished.”

They all looked at each other. Finally Katsumi said what was on his mind. “Time dilation.”

“What?”

“The rate at which you perceive time passing depends on how fast you travel’ said the Doctor. “At very high speeds, close to that of light, for instance, a very short period of time may pass for a traveller, while for a stationary observer a much longer period will pass. For instance, suppose you had a pair of twins, and one stayed on Earth while one took of in a spaceship travelling at close to light speed, on a round trip that would take fifty years, earth time. The one who remained on earth would age fifty years, as we’d expect, but the one who went into space, on his return, might well have aged only a year or so, and might look as young as on the day he took off.”

Saoirse was silent for a long time, as the implications of what he was saying sank in. Then she broke into slightly hysterical laughter, trying to conceal from herself that she did in fact feel frightened.

“Oh I see! I see what you’re saying. Of course, it all makes sense! The Tuatha de Danaan are alien space travellers, who once colonised the earth, and now they’re using the Mound as a base from which to abduct lone mortals! Is that it? Doctor, don’t try that one on me! Keep it for the “Chariots of the Gods” crowd. I’m not a child, I don’t fall for this sort of thing!”

The Doctor knew that things like this had in fact happened in Earth’s history. Nonetheless, there was a nagging doubt at the back of his mind that this was in fact the case here. He was trying to think of what to say, when Francois, who up till now had remained silent, intervened.

“Don’t be afraid, Mademoiselle – there could be another explanation.”

* * *

The forensic team were still busy combing every scrap of land within the confines of the stone circle. Large as it was, the entire site had been cordoned off. No-one was being allowed entry. So how was it then, that the sound of a dog barking was coming fom the direction of the Mound? The inspector in charge of the investigation looked up. Yes, there was a dog running towards him from the Mound. How had it got there? There was a shout from one of the Gardai, and as he ran over to where several of them had gathered, he saw the bewildered figure of a ten year old boy emerge from the entrance to the Mound.

[Fitz Kreiner]

very spooky, very well written.

im looking forward to the next part!

dont keep us in suspence for too long

[Cornelia_Africana]

Thanks. I'll get the next install ment up when I can, but having a family - you know what it's like when you don't have a lot of time on your hands!

[thascalos]

Good stuff, very well written

I can't wait for the next instalment