Inside, something black crouched upon a dais. “I’ve come for Lissy,” Tim said.
There was no reply, but a question hung in the air. He answered it almost without intending to. “I’m Timothy Ryan Neal, and I’ve come for Lissy. Give her back to me.”
A light, it seemed, dissolved the blackness. Cross-legged on the dais, a slender man in tweeds sucked at a long clay pipe. “It’s Irish, are ye?” he asked.
“American,” Tim said.
“With such a name? I don’t believe ye. Where’s yer feathers?”
“I want her back,” Tim said again.
“An’ if ye don’t get her?”
“Then I’ll tear this ship apart. You’ll have to kill me or take me too.”
“Spoken like a true son of the ould sod,” said the man in tweeds. He scratched a kitchen match on the sole of his boot and lit his pipe. “Sit down, will ye? I don’t fancy lookin’ up like that. It hurts me neck. Sit down, and ’tis possible we can strike an agreement.”
“This is crazy,” Tim said. “The whole thing is crazy.”
“It is that,” the man in tweeds replied. “An’ there’s much, much more comin’. Ye’d best brace for it, Tim me lad. Now sit down.”
There was a stout wooden chair behind Tim where the door had been. He sat. “Are you about to tell me you’re a leprechaun? I warn you, I won’t believe it.”
“Me? One o’ them scamperin’, thievin’, cobblin’ little misers? I’d shoot meself. Me name’s Daniel O’Donoghue, King o’ Connaught. Do ye believe that, now?”
“No,” Tim said.
“What would ye believe then?”
“That this is—some way, somehow—what people call a saucer. That you and your crew are from a planet of another sun.”
Daniel laughed. “ ’Tis a close encounter you’re havin’, is it? Would ye like to see me as a tiny green man wi’ horns like a snail’s? I can do that too.”
“Don’t bother.”
“All right, I won’t, though ’tis a good shape. A man can take it and be whatever he wants, one o’ the People o’ Peace or a bit o’ a man from Mars. I’ve used it for both, and there’s nothin’ better.”
“You took Lissy,” Tim said.
“And how would ye be knowin’ that?”
“I thought she’d drowned.”
“Did ye now?”
“And that this ship—or whatever it is—was just a sign, an omen. I talked to a policeman and he as good as told me, but I didn’t really think about what he said until last night, when I was trying to sleep.”
“Is it a dream yer havin’? Did ye ever think on that?”
“If it’s a dream, it’s still real,” Tim said doggedly. “And anyway, I saw your ship when I was awake, yesterday and the day before.”
“Or yer dreamin’ now ye did. But go on wi’ it.”
“He said Lissy couldn’t have been abducted because I was in the same bed, and that she’d gone out for a swim in the morning and drowned. But she could have been abducted, if she had gone out for the swim first. If someone had come for her with a boat. And she wouldn’t have drowned, because she didn’t swim good enough to drown. She was afraid of the water. We went in yesterday, and even with me there, she would hardly go in over her knees. So it was you.”
“Yer right, ye know,” Daniel said. He formed a little steeple of his fingers. “ ’Twas us.”
Tim was recalling stories that had been read to him when he was a child. “Fairies steal babies, don’t they? And brides. Is that why you do it? So we’ll think that’s who you are?”
“Bless ye, ’tis true,” Daniel told him. “ ’Tis the Fair Folk we are. The jinn o’ the desert too, and the saucer riders ye say ye credit, and forty score more. Would ye be likin’ to see me wi’ me goatskin breeches and me panpipe?” He chuckled. “Have ye never wondered why we’re so much alike the world over? Or thought that we don’t always know just which shape’s the best for a place, so the naiads and the dryads might as well be the ladies o’ the Deeny Shee? Do ye know what the folk o’ the Barb’ry Coast call the hell that’s under their sea?”
Tim shook his head.
“Why, ’tis Domdaniel. I wonder why that is, now. Tim, ye say ye want this girl.”
“That’s right.”
“An’ ye say there’ll be trouble and plenty for us if ye don’t have her. But let me tell ye now that if ye don’t get her, wi’ our blessin’ to boot, ye’ll drown—hold your tongue, can’t ye, for ’tis worse than that. If ye don’t get her wi’ our blessin’, ’twill be seen that ye were drownin’ now. Do ye take me meaning?”
“I think so. Close enough.”
“Ah, that’s good, that is. Now here’s me offer. Do ye remember how things stood before we took her?”
“Of course.”
