The Celtic Riddle

The other problem was the sodden scrap of paper I'd pulled out of the boat. I'd assumed that with only seven clues handed out at the reading of the Will, finding the treasure wouldn't be all that complicated: Put seven clues together, and presto, the treasure would be found. But if each clue led to another, did that mean there were fourteen clues, or even more? Or did it mean that there were seven separate trails that led to the treasure? I decided that the latter wouldn't be the case, because for all of them to pursue their separate ways would not accomplish the family salvation Byrne was hoping for. Maybe, I thought, the clue in the Ocean Crest wasn't a clue at all. I'd had a look at it, of course, as soon as we'd got to shore safely. It didn't look like much at all, although the writer had had the foresight to use ballpoint pen, so there was still ink to be seen. Morelike doodling than a clue. But if it was just doodling, why wrap it in plastic and hide it in the boat?

It occurred to me that there were more questions than answers in this little mental exercise I had taken upon myself and that proof of any of this speculation was in rather short supply.

I looked over at Denny. He'd put his hands flat on his thighs and was starting to rock slowly back and forth on the bench. The rest of us waited.

"I'll tell you a story about someting very strange that happened to someone around here," he said finally. "Now I'm not saying who. No, I'm not saying who 'tis I'm talking about. If you know, then you know. If you don't, then you won't hear it from me. No, you won't be hearing it from me.

"Once there was a Kerry man who'd a wife and beautiful daughters."

"Now this is a good one," Kev said. "Very mysterious, I'll tell you."

"Don't interrupt." Malachy scowled. "Let him tell it."

"But he wasn't happy, for he wanted a son. Soon it was too late, if you take my meaning, his wife getting on to middle age. He was nigh on desperate for a son, and some say he made a pact with the divil so's to have one. Whatever 'twas he did, to everyone's surprise, his wife presented him with a fine lad. A beauty, the boy was. All pink and gold, and eyes so blue. How he doted on that boy. Wouldn't hardly leave him alone for a minute."

"Hardly a minute," Malachy agreed.

"But one day he had to go to Cork to see to his affairs, and while he was away, and his little son, only a few weeks old, was rocking in his cradle out in the garden, a very strange boy, old-looking, came to the place. The maid, she seen him, and this strange creature hopped into the little boy's bed. When the man came home, he found his son gone, and this strange-looking creature in his boy's cradle. 'Twas a terrible ting happened, really 'twas. And he says to his wife, 'what's happened here?' And she says, 'what do you mean?' 'It's the fairies,' the man exclaims, 'they've taken my boy away.' 'Yer crazy,' the woman says. But I tell you 'twere true. The fairies had switched the boy for one of their own. And the man raced to find the boy before he ate the fairy food, because as everybody knows, once you eat their food, you're with them forever, the fairies."

" 'Tis true," Kev asserted. "If they take you, don't eat what they offer, not even a little bite, no matter it looks so good."

"Shh," said Malachy. "Let him finish."

"But the man had a pact with the divil, as I've just told you," Denny continued as if the others hadn't spoken. "So he went back to the divil and says to him, 'you promised me a son,' he says to the divil, bold as brass, for what'd he have to lose what with his son being taken and all? 'I gave you one,' the divil said. 'I didn't say you'd have him forever.'

"Now this Kerryman was no slouch in the head, if you know what I mean, no slouch at all in that department. 'So what do you tink people will be saying about you, if you don't keep your promises,' the Kerryman says. 'I'll be telling everybody what you done to me. There'll be no more pacts with the divil around here when I'm done.' 'Hush your tongue,' the divil says. 'You're worse than a woman for all your complaining. But I'll tell you what I'll do. You go back and get rid of the ugly child in your boy's bed, and I'll save your boy. But you'll have to find him yerself,because I've already promised him to another.'

"The Kerryman accepts the divil's offer. What else could he do? He goes home, and takes a sword and goes to whack the ugly boy over the head with it, and what do you know, the ugly child, seeing what he's up to, jumps out of the cradle and runs away so fast no one can catch him no matter how fast they run.