draped over her bald head, was Dmitri’s grandmother or babka, as he called her. A small table lamp shed golden light on her round face.
She was obviously very old. Her face was like an advertisement for wrinkles. A thick fur of white bristles whiskered her chin, and she had a mole the size of a golf ball on her thick neck, also home to a healthy colony of thick white hairs. Despite her age, her eyes were a lively blue. When she saw Brendan, she smiled, and Brendan felt instantly at home in her presence though he’d never met her before. She had always been upstairs in bed whenever he’d visited Dmitri.
The blue eyes were riveted on Brendan as he came into the room. She stared so intently at Brendan that he had to look away.
“She asked us to move her down here yesterday,” Dmitri said. “She wanted to watch TV”
Dmitri went to her and spoke gently in Polish. She smiled and beckoned Brendan closer with one hand, heavy with rings.
“Prince Brendan,” Babka whispered softly.
Dmitri spoke in Polish to his babka and she answered him. Dmitri translated. “She says you’re a prince. The Misplaced Prince.”
Brendan suddenly remembered Og greeting him in the same way when he’d arrived at the Swan. What was that all about? BLT darted from Brendan’s shoulder and did a loop around the old woman’s head. She clapped her wrinkled hands and laughed with delight. She spoke excitedly in Polish to Dmitri, who looked in wonder at his grandmother. The old woman held out a hand, and BLT gently lit in her wrinkled palm. She cooed to the tiny Faerie in soothing tones. BLT responded by stretching out and going to sleep.
“My babka says she used to speak with the Little People, the Chochlikach, she calls them, when she was a little girl in Poland. They came to visit her often.”
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.
