The Boggart Fights Back

ONE

Out of the cold grey water of Loch Linnhe, the seals hauled themselves up onto the rocks, one by one. There they lay on the wet brown seaweed like large glistening pillows, flippers folded over their round chests, enjoying the sunshine. A herring gull swooped over them and away, watchful, keening its long mournful cry.

Inland, the mountains rose grey-green on the horizon, with cloud-shadows drifting over their slopes. Smoothed by time, the land was like a great hand holding the loch peacefully in its palm—and the seals lay there happily basking in its peace. The small waves lapped at the rocks around them.

And then noise broke in.

Up the loch from beyond the Isle of Lismore a motorboat came roaring, headed toward the rocks, white water foaming from its bow. There were three men in it, hunched down. Banking overhead again, the herring gull saw sunlight glint on the shiny bald head of the biggest of them. Then the shiny head jerked up and there was a shout, and the roaring engine gave a louder roar as the boat and its foamy wake suddenly slowed down.

One by one, the seals slipped into the water and disappeared.

The boat swayed there alone.

Hey—seals! the big man called out, grinning. That’s a huge attraction, huge! We got a real live Scottish castle and real live Scottish seals! People are gonna just love that!

These are called the Seal Rocks, Mr. Trout, said the man at the helm quietly. The engine purred. The boat rocked on the echo of its own wake.

Big bald Mr. Trout stood up, beaming, clutching the windshield for balance, peering at the rocks. And they’re so close by! It’ll be a perfect side trip from the hotel, perfect—come swim with the seals, folks! We’ll give them snorkels and flippers! Guess they’ll need full wet suits too, in this place. He gave a loud snicker.

The helmsman did not smile, but the third man in the boat, younger, laughed heartily. Great idea! he said. Great! Like Trout, he was wearing a black rain jacket with a large letter T printed in yellow on its back.

The helmsman said politely, Seals are a protected species in Scotland, Mr. Trout.

Trout snorted, and waved his free hand. So what? Nobody’s going to shoot them, man! The seals’ll love it too, believe me, I know about these things! Dolphins swim with people all the time at my Florida resort—everyone knows they enjoy it!

Absolutely true! said the younger man firmly, and Trout smiled at him in approval. Then he turned away from the seals, facing the loch.

And here’s our biggest selling point—the castle! He flung out his arm in a proud sweep toward the very small island beyond the Seal Rocks. It was not much more than a rock itself, but from its grassy back rose the neat square shape of the oldest and smallest castle in all of Scotland, Castle Keep. The water of the loch lapped peacefully around its edge, and beyond it the mountains rolled green and timeless into the distance.

Perfect! said the young man. He reached into an inside pocket for his cell phone and began taking pictures.

The helmsman waited in the rocking boat, silent. The engine thrummed.

We’re renting, but it’ll be mine soon—just got to clear up a few legal details, Trout said. Then I might make it look more the way people expect a castle to look—you know, battlements, all that stuff. On the shore, we got two hundred acres now, and there’s nothing in the way—just a tacky little store. We’re buying that, of course. Perfect! Plenty of room for the hotel and the condos, and all of it only ten minutes from the golf course! I’d buy that too, make it much, much better, a real Trout course—but it’s municipal, belongs to the town.

The herring gull drifted high overhead, keening.

But you got the castle, that’s what matters! the young man said. I love it! You really hit the jackpot this time!

So I want you to get the website up just before we make the announcement, okay? No point in stirring up the screaming tree-huggers before we have to. And they’ll be waiting, oh yes—all these fabulous developments I’ve done, but the lying agitators always try to make me the bad guy. Trout scowled for a moment, then brightened again. Well, not this time ! We’ll set up the website with all these beautiful pictures you’re taking and then we’ll announce—and I want a press conference that very day. Bring ’em all in by bus, buses from all over. Right?

Right! said the young man fervently.

Mr. Trout swung round toward the man at the helm, flashing snowy white teeth in a broad suntanned face. Okay, Dougal! Show him where the Trout Castle Resort’s going to be! Let’s go!

He whacked him happily on the shoulder, ignoring the fact that the shoulder led to the hand on the boat’s controls, and again the engine gave a sudden earsplitting roar. Hastily the helmsman calmed it, as the other two laughed, and the motorboat creamed away from the Seal Rocks, round the quiet unsuspecting island where Castle Keep stood.

*  *  *

And deep at the bottom of the loch, far below, a little twirling cloud of sand puffed up into the dark water, as something stirred. Something formless and ancient, which had been sleeping peacefully there in the sandy mud for years. One of the Old Things, a creature bound by no rules but those of the Wild Magic; a creature who might well have slept on for the rest of this century, if that sudden snarl of that boat’s engine had not jolted it conscious again.

The Boggart was waking up, just in time.

TWO

Tom Cameron closed the trunk of his rented car, and looked out at the little wooden jetty on the shore of the loch. Then he looked past it, across the years and the memories, at grey Castle Keep rising from its green hummock in the great stretch of tranquil water beyond. The jetty hadn’t been there when he was a boy, but his father’s battered little dinghy, tied up to it now, looked just as tough and indomitable as it had thirty years before.

That was my boat when I was your age, he said.

Jay said, "You had your own boat?"

With a puny wee motor, though, Granda said. Mine’s better.

Jay stared at his father enviously. "You had your own boat and a motor."

Tom laughed, and settled himself in the car. Don’t get the idea that parents were softer then, he said. Dad was a tough cookie. Until I was ten I didn’t have a motor at all—he made me row.

Allie came running from the store with a bottle of Scottish spring water in her hand, and reached it in to him through the car window.

Stay hydrated, Dad! she said.

Tom Cameron grinned at her. Thank you, doctor.

And text us when you get to Edinburgh.

He can’t. I told you, we don’t have reception here, Jay said, rolling his eyes. He was the practical twin.

Allie paused, deflated. Shoot. I’d forgotten.

Their father started the engine. I’ll call you—on Granda’s beautiful efficient old landline. And you use it too—call your mom. Often. You know how mad she was that she couldn’t come.

Working mothers! said Jay, with an eye on his sister. Huh!

Allie took the bait instantly, satisfyingly. It wasn’t her fault! she said indignantly. She was just unlucky her meeting was in Ottawa and not here! Then she saw her brother’s grinning face, and she punched him.

And you were lucky that I was luckier, Tom said. He winked at Granda, and started the engine. Be good. I’ll call you tonight. Bye, all!

They waved as he drove off, along the track that would join the road snaking round Loch Linnhe toward the mountains.

Allie took her grandfather’s hand. Okay, Granda—now you’re stuck with us, for two whole weeks, she said with satisfaction.

Free labor, Angus Cameron said. And ye’ll likely be my defense against the dreaded visitors. The accents will confuse the heck out of them.

To the twins’ eyes he was an older model of their father, Tom, this year more than ever: the same lean frame and watchful blue eyes, the same retreating curly hair—though on Granda, the curls were snowy white. For the past five years, since Grammie died, he had been visiting them each year in Toronto; this summer, to their delight, they were here instead.

Granda dropped Allie’s hand and gave her ponytail a tug. Back to work, he said, and he turned back toward the Port Appin Store, with its crowded windows full of everything from whisky to paper clips. Strictly speaking, Granda was a journalist; he had been briefly very famous, long before they were born, for taking the only unquestionably clear photograph of the Loch Ness Monster, still reproduced all over the world. But these days it was the store that earned him his living.

Out on the loch there was a brief roar from an engine, though it rapidly faded. They all looked but could see only the waves lapping at the shore, and the brooding shape of Castle Keep on its little island.

Granda sighed. Speaking of visitors, he said.

Jay said hopefully, Can we take your boat out?

Later. You can go with Portia. It’s Monday—housekeeping day for the castle, until the season begins.

Yay! Allie said. We get to go inside!

You get to vacuum, if she lets you, her grandfather said. Come on, now.

They had met Portia; she was a masterful lady who arrived nearly every day to help Granda run the store and look after the castle, whose distant owners were seldom there. Until its summer tourist season began, the two of them were the keepers of the castle, protective and respectful.

Gulls swooped over the twins’ heads as they walked back from the road, across the stretch of grass and stones that would be crowded wheel to wheel, soon, with the cars of holidaymakers arriving to admire Castle Keep. The most patient of these admirers would wait for hours to tour the inside of the castle, ferried over in small groups by one of the local schoolteachers who acted as guides, but many others came just to gaze and exclaim, and to buy snacks and souvenirs at Granda’s store, as well as framed, signed copies of his famous photograph of the Monster. He was grateful, but always relieved when the summer ended and the stream of visitors became a trickle.

At the store door Jay paused, and turned for one more wistful look at the loch, trying to remember misty, haunting images from their only other visit to Scotland, when he and Allie had been five years old.

The seals, he said. Are the seals still there?

*  *  *

Down on the bottom of the loch the Boggart paused, in his yawning way back into sleep. He looked up. Very, very dimly, against the faint glow that was all that this dark water would show him of the sunlight above its surface, he saw the flicker of a diving seal. For a moment he remembered the delight of diving like that, taking on that same shape, playing with the wild things.

And there was something else holding him back from sleep as well, something other than the seals; something else was calling to him. It was very faint, but he could sense it. Though there was nothing to see or hear, the call was reaching out to his ancient, magical, formless mind.

What was it?

Who was it?

*  *  *

In the store, Mozart’s first Horn Concerto was playing softly out of the radio, over the groceries, and Portia was standing there motionless, looking worried. She was a brisk, compact person with short grey hair, and Granda had never seen her either motionless or worried before. He looked at her warily. She stood in the open doorway between the store and the kitchen of the house, still wearing her raincoat.

Allie beamed at her. Morning, Portia!

Portia was looking at Granda: an odd, strained look. I’m making some tea, she said.

That’s nice, said Granda mildly.

Dad took off to Edinburgh, for work, Jay said. For two weeks!

Portia paid him no attention. She held up a long white envelope. I met the postman, she said.

Portia, said Granda, are ye all right?

There was a phone call for you too, Portia said. Just now. I didn’t realize you were out by the loch.

Well, that’s no problem, Granda said. I’ll ring them back.

It was a man. He said it was about your selling the store.

There was a sudden silence. Even the music seemed to pause. The twins stared at her, and then at their grandfather.

He sounded American. Portia’s voice shook a little. Angus, you aren’t selling the store, are you?

Are ye joking? said Granda. Of course not.

She was still holding up the envelope. And there’s this. The man said there would be a letter.

This is ridiculous, Granda said. He took the envelope, glanced at it briefly, and tore it in half.

There have been several letters and several phone calls, he said. And endless e-mails. From the Trout Corporation, whoever they are. I said no the first time, but they keep on and on. Someday they’ll grasp the fact that when a Scot says no, he means it.

They want to buy the store? Jay said.

They want to buy this whole piece of coast and nae doubt the castle, and build a resort for American tourists. Can you believe it? Right here. But to my knowledge the castle’s not for sale and nor am I, so they’ve another think coming. Granda dropped the pieces of envelope into a wastepaper basket. Portia, where’s that tea?

THREE

The sky was grey, but the air was warm. Portia steered the dinghy past the castle’s tall, lichen-dappled stone walls and out across the loch toward the Seal Rocks.

But only for five minutes, she said. And if there’s none there, we don’t stay.

Deal, Jay said. He sat in the bow, peering ahead. After this one diversion to look for the seals, they were on their way to help Portia give the castle its weekly cleaning, leaving Granda to man the store.

Allie was looking back at Castle Keep, rising from its small green island. Those people couldn’t really buy the castle, could they? she said.

Portia shook her head firmly. You heard what your grandfather said. Don’t even think about it.

Mmm, Allie said. She stared at the castle’s towering grey walls. It’s just wonderful, she said. But there’s so few windows. And they’re tiny. I’d forgotten how tiny they are.

They kept out arrows and they kept out the wind, Portia said. If you’d lived through a Scottish winter in the fifteenth century, you’d have wanted tiny windows too. She slowed the outboard motor a little as the boat dipped into a wave.

Allie was still looking back at Castle Keep, distracted only for a moment as a herring gull swooped over their wake. "Just think—all the time Dad was growing up here, he was looking at a castle out of his bedroom window. Amazing."

Portia said, "When your dad was a boy he used to help out the old clan chief over there, your