"Devil's Moonshine" by Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara

In his second novel of the BryonySeries "Ruthless" series, Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara, references this BryonySeries take an old Halloween legend.

To help you enjoy the excerpt below, first read the back cover copy of "The Fifth," also below.

Happy Saturday!

Vampires in Munsonville elude the control of both the living and the dead.

And five particular vampires cause most of the trouble.

John Simons is about to be staked, but he’s already a suspect in five murders.

Henry Mathews is already staked but is still writing attack pieces for the Post.

Kellen Wechsler is responsible for at least one murder. But is he the puppeteer or just the puppet? If he is a puppet, who pulls the strings?

Susan Betts is just missing. Where did she go and why is Kellen looking so hard for her?

Ed Calkins, the world’ first Irish vampire, is psychotic just enough to be dangerous. As a ruthless dictator, he'll hurt your feelings.

But as five vampires are wreaking havoc, five living beings are working to keep Beulah County safe: Sherrif Matt, who’s unlikely to win reelection; Trudy, a capable, but alcoholic deputy; Marsha, a new deputy, inexperienced with the supernatural and carrying her own baggage; Eircheard, a leprechaun, willing to help at a price; and Glorna, a wood sprite, who replaced a recently killed occultist but should be somewhere – and someone – else.

Can these five living players bring law and order to the undead world? Or will vampires consume the blood of every living creature till there are no more?

CHAPTER 11: DEVIL’S MOONSHINE

 

Marsha hadn’t said a word since her shift ended. The way she sat on the bed in Room 24 at Munsonville Inn, still in uniform, ignoring Sandra, and staring out into space told Sandra he shift ended badly.

 

              A question left the pregnant woman’s mouth. She feared it the moment she said it, but the other woman acted as if she didn’t hear it.

 

              “Are you leaving me?”

 

              Marsha wasn’t going to talk to her, and Sandra couldn’t stand another moment. Marsha just stared at the TV, pretending to watch it, so Sandra packed her fears and doubts, along with a small notebook on a quest for answers.

 

              “I’m going to the library,” she told Marsha, who said nothing still.

 

              Libraries. Sandra never used them. But Munsonville Library, the small, crate-like building next door, had an impressive collection of desktop computers with free internet access, plenty of helpful librarians, and no one troubling her about a library card. Right now, Sandra didn’t want any help from people who might think her questions were obvious or stupid. With these wonderful machines, she typed in a question and a bunch of answers appeared on the screen. She could skip the ones she didn’t understand and select the ones that were helpful without fear of reveling too much about herself.

 

              Sandra typed, “Why can’t anyone tell me how to get to Munsonville, Michigan?”

 

              The first sight was a map of Munsonville. Not helpful. Other sights had the history of the town or Munsonville in other states, but nothing placed its location in the state of Michigan. Next, she tried, “Where is Munsonville, Michigan?” Again, she saw maps of Munsonville or maps of Michigan, but no maps of Michigan that showed Munsonville.

 

              Next, she asked for a list of all Michigan counties that begin with the letter “B.” All sites mentioned six, none of the Beulah. How could that be? Then, she typed in Beulah County, Michigan and pulled up ten websites advertising vacation spots in Thornton, Shelby, Jenson, and Munsonville. Some had maps. None referenced other Michigan counties.

 

              What?

 

With her heart racing, Sandra typed in the words she feared the most. “What is the statute of limitations for kidnapping and statutory rape in Michigan?”

 

              She never pressed enter.

 

              “Sandra!”

 

              Trudy!

 

              Sandra tried to cover the screen, but it was too late.

 

              “We haven’t been completely honest with each other, have we?” Trudy said.

 

              Still panicking as if she’d committed crime, Sandra shook her head negatively and closed out of the search.

 

              “Sheriff Matt thinks it’s time to change that.” Trudy sat in the chair next to Sandra. “I see you want answers. Marsha wants answers. Eircheard – my husband – and I all have confessions. I’ll tell the true if you will.”

 

              Sandra wondered if she could trust the other woman and then decided she really had no choice. “OK,” she decided in a croaking voice.

 

              “Meet me at the sheriff’s office in thirty minutes or so. I’ll get Eircheard and Marsha. All five of us need to get some things off our chests.”

 

              Trudy walked away, leaving Sandra wondering if turning herself in was the best way.

 

              “Maybe you can help me,” Sandra said to a friendly, good-looking teenage girl with long flowing black hair. “If I wanted to leave Beulah County and go to another state, how would I get there?”

 

              The girl paused as if Sandra asked a classified question.

 

              “Leaving is no problem,” she said, leaning in and whispering. “Take Main Street till you find a yellow double line. That means you’ve found a state highway and the map’s app on your phone will tell you how to get anywhere in the country.”

 

              “Right or left on Main Street?”

 

              “Doesn’t matter. Nor does the highway number. It’s different for everyone. What is always the same, and this is important, you should draw a hand map and take a picture of where you are when Main Street becomes a highway. If you don’t do that, you might never find your way back.”

 

              “But why can’t I find Beulah County on any map of Michigan?”

 

              “Because Beulah County isn’t part of Michigan. Its inside Michigan but it belongs to another state.”

 

              “What state is that?”

 

              “A state of sin.”

 

              The girl disappeared as if she were never there. No one inside the library gave any indication that anything was amiss. Sandra slowly walked to the exit, her mind on the morning’s bewildering events.

 

              Marsha wasn’t surprised when Trudy and Matt came for her later that morning with a knock and no notice from the hotel desk.

 

              “I’m not just being fired, am I? I’m being arrested.” Marsha accused Matt.

 

              “We’re taking you to the station to figure all that out,” Matt said solemnly “But we’re going to need your service revolver and all the rounds.”

 

              Trudy stood by Matt without a word.

 

              “My badge?” Although her shift ended four hours ago, Marsha was still in uniform.

 

              “Keep that on for now.”

 

              Marsha turned over her holster without the last-stand fight, the way she always imagined the way her life of freedom might end. They didn’t cuff her as they would other suspects, so they didn’t need to protect her head as she climbed into the back seat. She clearly wouldn’t be driving this time.

 

              No one spoke for the dismal fifteen-minute drive to the Beulah County station, located in the middle of an otherwise empty field halfway between Munsonville and Jenson. But as they pulled into the parking lot of the small building, Marsha muttered a half question, half verdict: “Sandra left me.”

 

              Matt sighed before exiting the driver’s seat.

 

              “We’ll sort that out too,” he promised. “In the conference room.”

 

              Not the interrogation room? Oh, Marsha realized as she entered it. The conference room was the interrogation room.

 

              The pair did not bother to flank her; something she wouldn’t tolerate if she were sheriff. Once the conference door opened, she got a surprise as she quickly read the room. Sandra was seated on the far side of a round table, and it looked like she’d been crying. But next to her, as if they’d been talking, was that terrible short man that tried to con Sandra out of her truck.

 

              “What’s HE doing here?” Marsha demanded hotly.

 

              “Same as you, lassie,” Eircheard retorted. “I’m here to confess me crimes.”

 

              “Calm down and sit,” Matt ordered, taking a seat before Trudy or Marsha complied. Marsha nearly lost it when Matt slid the gun and holster he had taken from her across the table towards Eircheard.

 

              “Shut it! “Matt ordered before Marsha could protest, staring her down. Marsha slumped in the chair and Matt started his little conference of confessions.

 

              “Now, some of us know that we wouldn’t be here in Munsonville if we didn’t have something to hide. But we’re going to have to trust each other if we’ve going to keep the people in Beulah County safe. Now, right now, every one of us has a reason not to trust anyone here. Marsha and Sandra, that’s especially true since nothing in this county seems to make any sense. I still don’t want to hear anyone’s last name. Is that clear? I’ll explain why when it’s my turn to speak. We’ll take those turns from the least culpable to the most. Sandra will go first, followed by Marsha, Trudy, me, and then Eircheard. When it’s your turn, I expect you to tell us what you’ve been hiding. Hopefully, we’ll understand each other better. Sandra’s going to start by telling us about her age.”

 

              Sandra turned bright red, but Eircheard interrupted and produced a flowerpot with a strange, flowering plant of large yellow petals.

 

              “Sorry, sheriff, but I’ve taken the liberty of bringing a soul flower to this meeting,” Eircheard said as he pushed the plant to the center of the old round table. “A soul flower can detect when someone is lying, fibbing, exaggerating, telling half-truths, or being deceitful in some way. By the time my turn comes around, you’ll know how to read this soul flower. But let me make this clear: no soul flower, no silver bullets.”

 

              Matt shrugged and waited. Marsha rolled her eyes. Sandra. face in her hands. mumbled her confession: “I’ll be seventeen next month.”

 

              To the astonishment of Marsha and Matt, the flower turned bright blue.

 

              “She’s telling the complete truth.” Eircheard reported.

 

              “It was a different time,” Marsha quickly reminded everyone.

 

              Eircheard snorted and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. “Remember you said that, lass.”

 

              “A different time,” Matt repeated. “So you said when you married a man out of high school.”

 

              Sandra lowered her hands. “I dropped out of high school when my Pa thought it was time to get married.” A sob escaped Sandra’s throat, and she masked it with a quick cough. “But I’m pregnant and alone right now, with no one to support me. If you fire Marsha, I don’t know what I’d do. I’ll have to work somewhere, but who will watch the twins when I’m gone?”

 

              “No one is getting fired, Sandra,” Matt said in a reassuring way. “Not yet. We’ll work something out. But this brings us to Marsha.” He turned to Marsha and said in a low voice, “You didn’t quit the CPD, did you? You became a fugitive when your relationship with Sandra became suspect.”

 

              Sandra buried her head in her arms and wept.

 

              Marsha grimaced at the word “fugitive”, but she spoke with assurance. “Didn’t take more than the suspicion of a wife beater to get me fired. But when Sandra and I took to the road – God knows what charges were filed. I’m sure I am a fugitive. Back then the law against sex with minors would have applied to Sandra’s husband too as he was twenty-five when they married. But back then, girls got married as minors all the time and were treated like adults in every way unless she ran off with a black lesbian. If you turn me in, I’ll spend the rest of my life behind bars.”

 

              “I can’t turn you in,” Matt said quietly.

 

              “I would have expected you to tell me that you had to turn me in as is your duty to that badge you wear,” Marsha shot back.

 

              Eircheard nodded, impressed. His plant had not change from truthful blue once. He leaned towards Marsha and locked eyes on her. Marsha matched his resolve.

 

              “You had to know you’d be breaking the law if you kept a man’s wife as your own, lass. Do you regret anything about that?”

 

              “I wish Sandra were older, but I’d do the same again no matter how much time I serve. We crossed three state lines, and I expect each state is going to charge me.”

 

              “Except you’re not in any state…not even Michigan.” Matt’s gaze swept over the stunned faces around the table. “Michigan has no Beulah County.”

 

Trudy opened her mouth open to object, but no words came out. Marsha shook her head as if reeling from some invisible blow. Even Sandra interrupted her weeping to view the man who spoke the madness. Only Eircheard reacted to Matt’s words. He wore a triumphant expression, almost as if he were expecting them.

 

              It took a full minute for anyone to respond. Marsha recovered first. “Is Beulah County a tribal nation?”

 

            But Matt had picked up a stray paper clip from the table and was intently untwisting it. No one spoke until he set the paper clip aside and swept his gaze across the room.

 

              “Something like that, but more sinister,” Matt finally said. “I’ll tell you more when it’s my turn. All I can tell you, without explaining too much, is that the statute of limitations shielded you when you went through that portal and I’m not talking about thirty years. Outside of Beulah, you MIGHT not even exist. No birth certificate, no social security number…nothing but your body and soul.”

 

              Eircheard snorted again. “You’re trying to talk about a time bubble that vampire friend of yours keeps causing. Stake the vampire and see what happens to Beulah.”

 

              “I’m no friend to any vampire.” Marsha objected.

 

              “He’s talking about me.” Trudy yawned, clearly bored with the conversation so far. “When he lived, he was my best friend.”

 

              “Ed Calkins,” Matt said with a warning look at Trudy. “He was born and raised here in Munsonville and spent much of his young life with Trudy. Last year, he was found dead in his van with a bullet in his head. He died before sunrise while delivering newspapers. Strangely, that murder caught the attention of Michigan authorities, and everyone downstate started acting like Beulah County does exist. They even sent a Detroit detective to take over the case.”

 

              “Who shot him?” Marsha asked.

 

              “I did!”

 

            Marsha blinked at Trudy’s fierce admission. “Why?”

 

              “I didn’t know why.” Trudy shrugged as if she didn’t care. “I mean, there was a reason, I just didn’t remember. I was drinking heavily and blacked out. All I remember is seeing his van, aiming at the driver side window, and firing a non-service pistol. The last thing I remember is a feeling of calmness coming over me and believing that Eddie was at peace. I was going to confess, but I wanted to be part of his burial first. That’s when I met Eddie the vampire and he challenged me to a duel.”

 

              “For killing him?”

 

              “No. For winning the lottery.”

 

              “You won the lottery?”

 

              “No again. He won the lottery. It still bothered me, and vampire Eddie wanted to clear the air. All the while we were growing up, Eddie had a crush on me, and I knew it. Despite that, we were friends…best friends. In our late twenties, Eddie met Nala and started dating her. Two years later, Eddie reluctantly proposed to her just before she left for vacation. When I heard about the engagement – and having had many late-night conversations about his reluctance – I decided he should marry me instead.”

 

              “Did you ever ask him?”

 

              “I didn’t just ask him. I ran over to his apartment. I never really asked him; I just told him point-blank that we’re going to be married. When he responded, I thought I heard the most beautiful answer I would ever hear. He said, “Marrying you would be like winning the lottery.” I made the mistake of thinking that was a ‘yes.’ For forty-eight hours, it did mean ‘yes’ and we made love in every way I could think of. Later, he told me it was the best sex of his life. Anyway, after two days, he still hadn’t called her to break up and I knew what he would learn. He wasn’t going to marry me. Understand, I had at that point been married eight times already and none of them worked out. Eddie had been married hundreds of times to all sorts of beautiful, famous, interesting women, but all of them in his imagination. Eddie was afraid of marriage, afraid or women, and afraid of people. My insisting that we marry forced him to turn at least one of us down. He was more afraid of that than marriage. So, Eddie kept his wedding date with Nala. He and I set those two nights aside as if it never happened. That all changed after his death.”

 

              “But you’re still alive,” Marsha asked, trying to follow the story. “And Eircheard seems to think the vampire is still alive. Did you get arrested before the duel? Maybe you chickened out…or did the vampire…”

 

              “We dueled. I showed up at the appointed time in Wraith Park with my service revolver loaded with six silver bullets and twelve more around my waist. I also had a stake shooter that his son made for me to kill vampires with. Eddie showed up with a poem.”

 

              “Are you telling us you didn’t win?”

 

              “Never bring a pistol to a limerick fight. No, I didn’t win. He hurt my feelings so bad I kept missing when I shot at him. I lost thirteen silver bullets in all, and those things aren’t cheap.”

 

              “But he didn’t bite you, right?”

 

              “No, he didn’t. I asked him to. I asked him to turn me…as in turn me into a vampire. You see, I thought I was about to get arrested for his murder. If he did turn me, I’d have been his vampire slave. He refused me, saying I wasn’t going to prison. But I if wanted a slave, I could buy Eircheard off of him, but I’d have to pay the full price. However, he had already sold me to Eircheard…that’s just the way Eddie does human trafficking. I’ll explain later.”

 

              “So, why didn’t you get arrested? You were going to confess.”

 

              Eircheard jumped in.

 

              “She had nothing to confess,” he said in a tone that told everyone in the room not to challenge him. “I had taken the bullets out of her damned guns the night before without her knowing. I was using those bullets to fashion silver bullets of the same size. That’s why Matt is giving me your damned pistol that you Fir Blog are so found of. I’m to do the same for you as I did for Trudy.”

 

            All eyes swerved to the soul flower. Still blue.

 

              Trudy slid back in the seat and yawned again. “My husband is right. Eddie took me back in time to see myself aim the gun and squeeze the trigger. Nothing left the barrel, which explains why both guns were completely empty when I woke the next morning and casings weren’t anywhere to be found. The shot I heard and assumed was my pistol was actually fired at the same time as a hunting rifle that some deer poacher fired, missed, and struck Eddie’s head. Knowing that took the urgency out of telling Matt that I was golden and the autopsy report due that morning would clear me. I went instead to Eircheard to make sure he would abide by the deal I made with Eddie, and I didn’t just belong to him, but he belonged to me. Anyway, the autopsy report cleared everyone. Eddie died of a heart attack and the poacher’s bullet hit post-mortem.

 

              “You bought your husband?” Sandra asked in astonishment. “How much did you pay?”

 

            Eircheard turned away in disgust. Trudy sighed heavily before she answered.

 

              “Every February thirteenth, my husband and I have to march down Main Street at two in the morning along with brownies and leprechauns to celebrate the ‘Calkins Day Parade’. We did it last year, we did it this year, and – even if we break up – we’ve got to keep doing it, or we’re in default and my husband becomes a cluricahn instead of a leprechaun.”

 

              Sandra laughed. “You don’t want your ex to be a cluricahn, but my grandpa used to say that a cluricahn was just a leprechaun on a bender so...”

 

              “You don’t want to get your feelings hurt by Eddie either.” Trudy said somberly.

 

              Marsha slammed her hand on the table, utterly confused and disgusted.

 

              “What’s with all this ‘hurt feelings’ stuff. Vampires drink your blood and kill you or worse in the process. At least that’s what I know about vampires. Anyway, the one thing you told me about Ed Calkins is that he’s a coward. If he’s a coward, why should we be afraid of him? Should we be more afraid of John Simons?”

 

              “He IS a coward, just not in the traditional sense. He’s afraid of people. He’s good at hiding it, but that takes energy. He’s afraid of people thinking badly of him. Maybe that’s why he assumes everyone is also afraid of him. Maybe it’s his dyslexia or simple projection, but that’s how the great Ed Calkins attacks. He seeks out the most damning quality a person hides about themselves and strikes, often in limerick form. I thought it was silly of him. I thought he was joking about it or maybe just lying to himself. Now, after being attacked in that way, when I had weapons and he didn’t, I believe that makes Ed Calkins the most dangerous vampire of all times. It’s like he’s been to the darkest place that any soul could ever transgress; the worst of oneself exposed to all. Now, he knows we all have that place buried in ourselves.”

 

              “Wow,” Marsha said sarcastically. “Let me make a note about that. When you’re with a vampire, don’t fear for your neck. Be afraid of hurt feelings.”

 

              “Not all vampires, just Eddie. The truth is, Eddie is the least scary vampire you’ll ever meet. But that makes him all the more dangerous. He tries to convince himself that everyone is terrified, but even he can’t believe that. Still, if you’re unimpressed with the ‘hurt feelings’ ability, he has others that I’d rather show you than tell you about. He is on our side.”

 

              “And you trust him?” Sandra interrupted with alarm. “A vampire has no soul!”

 

              “Eddie is a puppet. I don’t trust him as much as the woman pulling his strings. Vampires are easy to control if you have the right levers. Vampires have very narrow desires. Eddie’s lever is his widow, Nala, whom Eddie believes is holding his soul. If he ever wants it back – and he does – he must do what she requires of him. Eddie expects me to stake him before he goes off the rail and falls short of Nala’s mandates. Should he fail to fail before I get too old, the duty of staking him falls to his oldest granddaughter.”

 

              Marsha rolled er eyes and held up five fingers.

 

              “So of the five known vampires, the most powerful is the henpecked one with a death wish that goes around hurting feelings. Here’s an idea: put up signs all over the county. ‘Ed Calkins; nobody likes you. Nobody is afraid of you here. Go to Detroit where they live in dread of your limericks. Take your wife and vampire friend with you.’ I’ve been afraid many times since I came here, but I’ve yet to fear a vampire.”

 

              “Rightly so,” Trudy agreed. “Ghosts are far more fearsome. Meeting a werewolf in wolf form is almost always fatal.  But Eddie is not as hapless as you think. Rumor says he imagines things into existence. I’ve yet to see it, but my husband insists he comes from a place entirely imagined by the ‘Steward of Tara,’ which is what they call him. Others say that he went to the end of time and back twice, making him the oldest vampire every even though he’s the most recent vampire in Beulah County.”

 

            Eircheard scowled at Trudy. “I swear to you I’ve seen him conjure the whole island out of thin air.” He turned to Marsha. “doesn’t mean he’s as smart as any leprechaun and he has to keep his word. Worry about his lover, you should. She has the power – and who can say it’s not for the glory of hell? Wondering why Beulah isn’t part of Michigan, are you? Best believe it’s not something a vampire can do by himself. There’s a Nephilim at play here. We leprechauns know danger when we see it.”

 

              Marsha had enough. Half rising out of her chair, she cried, “You’re claiming to be a leprechaun? Don’t you mean con man?”

 

              Sandra nudged her. “Or course he’s a leprechaun. Can’t you see that?” She pointed to the blue soul flower.

 

              “And you’re claiming that Beulah isn’t part of Michigan?” Trudy tossed her head. “Did we declare our independence and I missed it?”

 

              Matt sighed and leaned back in his chair.

 

              “This is where my confession starts.” Matt said in a soft but firm voice.

 

            Everyone stopped talking. Sandra tugged Marsha’s shirt. Marsha sank back into her chair, keeping her gaze on Matt.

 

“The truth is, we didn’t declare our independence,” Matt said. “Michigan just forgot about us. We’ve missed every census since Buelah County was founded. Police, fire, sanitation; none of the funding for that ever came from the state. It took me years to find that out. You see, people around here are used to strange things happening. You just don’t question them. But I did. It's my job to investigate. Local lore says a Scottish Italian named Owen Munson bought all the land in Beulah County and bought it cheap. I dug up all the old bills of sales that I could, trying to find what Owen paid and who he paid it to, but I never found anything. I did find zoning plans. Owen expected to settle the whole plot, but that didn’t happen. Shelby was a carriage stop. And then there’s Jenson. Do you know that Jenson University isn’t accredited? Thornton was already growing. How could zoning planners have missed that? My guess is either someone sold Owen Munson the Brooklyn Bridge, or he was a squatter with a lot of friends. I used the longitude and latitude coordinates and compared it with an official state map. I found that Beulah County is contained in a national park that no one ever visits. Yet people here pay property taxes and federal taxes that state and federal treasuries never know about. I wonder where all that money has been going to all these years. Consider it an ongoing investigation.”

 

              “The devil!” Eircheard cried with a heaty laugh. “You’re investigating the devil!”

 

              “The devil’s moonshine.” Matt corrected. “At least that’s what funds us.”

 

            Eircheard narrowed his eyes, glowering. The others stared back at Matt,

 

            Three confused faces stared back at Matt, waiting for some explanation. Eircheard.

 

              “You see, there was a time when Munsonville had its own police force – of sorts – and you didn’t need any degree in law enforcement or any police academy certification to join. You had to know how to fire a gun and live in the town.”

 

              “Did you need a last name?” Marsha interrupted.

 

              “No. Everyone knew me as Matt, and everyone knew I could handle a gun.”

 

              “What about your paycheck?”

 

              “There never was a paycheck. Let me tell the story. You see, I didn’t even apply. It was more like being drafted. On my first day, however, I was given a partner. The shift was almost over when we got a call about a missing high school girl in the wee hours of a Halloween sleepover. The hosting mother made the call. She allowed her daughter to have her three friends from Grovers Park, Illinois, stay over that night. She and her family had recently moved into the servant quarters of the old Simon Manion which, at the time, was a restoration site.”

 

              “Melissa Simotes! Our suspected spouse abuser – she grew up in that cottage!” Trudy blurted out.

 

              Matt nodded solemnly.

 

              “You see why I don’t like last names.” Matt picked up the paper clip and began untwisting it again. “No one here wants their stories told. Anyway, the missing girl, named Kimberly, wanted to explore the mansion and convinced the others to sneak out and go with her. The way they told the story, only Kimberly did. The others made it out of the house but got ‘creeped out’ heading towards the restoration site. The last time they saw her, she was maybe forty yards away, running towards it. After the Munsonville cops interviewed the girls, my partner Tom assumed that the only thing to do was search for the girl in the mansion and he assumed that I was right behind him.” Matt set the paper clip down and looked up. “Instead, I took the cruiser, heading somewhere else, just like Marsha did last night.”

 

              “You ran away?” Marsha asked.

 

              “No.” Matt hung his head. “I admit that I was irrationally terrified of going into that building, but where I was heading terrified me more. Yet, being from here and looking for a young girl triggered something in me. She had to be at the old Fisher Farm. Trudy, you know that place.”

 

              Trudy nodded to show she did. “Creepy at night.”

 

              “Yes, creepy. But it’s also where young girls seem to disappear from…at least to me. It’s not easy to get to. There’s a narrow dirt road meant for horse teams but… well, I was lucky it hadn’t rained. Neither farmhouse had caved in yet, but I had a feeling about the stables. Just then, I saw a figure. It was an old man walking towards it. I shouted, ‘Halt’ and fired when he didn’t. No one dropped and no one remained. I could have sworn it was the old man himself.”

 

              “Old Man Fisher?”

 

              Matt folded his hands and rested his chin on them. “To this day, I believe I was shooting at Clyde Fisher’s ghost. With my revolver still drawn, I entered the old mustang stables, calling out for Kimberly though, if I was right, she would not want to be found. Instead of her, I found old-style distilling equipment that didn’t have the rust of disuse – and at least a hundred wooden barrels stacked on either side. Most of them were filled with moonshine. I was facing the other way when I first heard him laughing at me.”

 

              “Clyde Fisher?”

 

              “No. He was a short man sitting on top of a barrel with a tin spoon in his hand. He looked a bit like Eircheard, but he was shorter and older, I’d say.”

 

              “A cluricahn!” Sandra exclaimed.

 

              “He called himself ‘Clancy’.”

 

              “That’s my papa,” Eircheard confessed. “If you’re dealing with him, you’re up to no good.”

 

            Eircheard pointed to the soul flower. True blue.

 

              Marsha was curious but skeptical. “What was this conman’s papa doing in a moonshine distillery all those years ago?”

 

              “He said he was tasting his purchase to make sure I wasn’t cutting back on him and that I could take back six barrels if I let him take the three remaining girls. I pointed my pistol and demanded that he tell me what he’d done with Kimberly. He told me that he hadn’t a chance to snatch her, that someone else had gotten to her and that I was too late to make any deals. I wanted to shoot him, and I think he guessed that, because he told me that if he’s not around, the devil’s moonshine will never fetch the same price. Then he dropped a small sack at my feet. About that same time, I heard screaming on my radio coming from my partner. I had forgotten I was still wearing it. I couldn’t get Tom to tell me anything that made sense expect that he was lost and wanted out. I turned and ran to the squad with lights and sirens blazing. I swear I did a thirty-minute trip in ten, but Tom was out of the building by the time I was pulling in front of it. I expected an earful, but Tom just snapped that he didn’t find her and there was nothing to be done about it. I drove to the station expecting that it was for the last time. Tom threw his badge and his gun on the chief’s desk and walked out without a word.”

 

              “He quit?”

 

              Matt shook his head. “There was no one to quit to. The chief wasn’t expected in till the next day, but there was no department the next day and the building was a coin laundry shop. When I saw that, I drove to where the distillery was. The equipment and the empty barrels were still there, but there was no sign of Clancy. All the filled barrels were gone. I would have believed that I dreamed the whole thing, but then I found the sack. It was filled with coins… I mean solid gold coins. I was still in my uniform with my revolver, badge, and radio when I got the call from the county to report for duty there. So I did. When I got there, Sheriff Alan was in his office looking very busy. He’d been on and off the phone with angry parents who expected their daughter would come back after her sleepover in Munsonville. They wanted an arrest warrant for Darlene and her boyfriend Steve Barnes, who was Munsonville’s maintenance man at the time. Allan deputized me in-between calls.”

 

              “Still no last names?” Marsha asked suspiciously.

 

              “Not that you’ll hear from me. Kimberly’s parents were well-connected, but nothing ever happened about the noise they made. They never came back to Beulah County, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it wasn’t because they couldn’t find the place. After a fire burned Simons Mansion to the ground, Steve, who lived his whole life in Munsonville, wanted out of Munsonville. He married Darlene and went with her back to Grover Park. Melissa came back to Beulah County that fall to attend Jenson College. By then, Kimberly’s folks had disappeared so there was no one to report the skeletons found in the Mansion’s ashes. I personally recovered both skeletons after the fire. One was of a teenage girl with a broken neck. The other was burnt and aged with a missing skull.”

 

              “What about the gold?” Marsha asked, hoping to find the hole in Sheriff Matt’s story. Still, the soul flower remained blue, which wasn’t encouraging. With a start, Marsha suddenly realized she had put her faith in an imaginary plant.

 

              “I turned it over to Sheriff Allan expecting it to be evidence,” he said. “That’s when I found out about the devil’s moonshine and the Beulah County’s estrangement to the state and the entire nation. Instructing me to never tell a soul, Sheriff Allen told me a tale that he claimed Owen Munson, Munsonville’s father, told his father when he was a boy on Halloween. The tale claims that the devil makes the best moonshine. That was saying a lot because the village got their moonshine from Clyde Fisher and that was the best that any had tasted. He told me that neither state nor nation had ever funded any public works in Beulah. But ever since Clyde passed, the distillery improved. No one knows who runs the distillery or why. No one knows who buys the moonshine or where they send it. It’s whispered as rumor that the devil distills it himself. I’ve never tasted it. All that is known is a bag of gold comes to Beulah County every week and, whichever county official gets it, knows to deposit the gold in the Beulah Savings and Loan County Bank. No one knows how or where the gold gets turned into cash, but each department gets a white envelope and no one that doesn’t disappear asks any questions. I told Sheriff Allan that it seemed like a lot of gold to fund this small county for only a week. He told me to be quiet. He wasn’t threatening me. He was warning me about something supernatural. Seven years later, he was forced to step down when wolves started mauling vacationers in Shelby; wolves that hadn’t been in this region since the Civil War. Whispering started that these were werewolves. A lynching happened and I got promoted as the youngest sheriff in the history of Beulah. By the way…that lynching wouldn’t have happened if no one knew the lynching victim’s last name.”

 

              “What did you do differently than Sheriff Alan?”

 

              “I hired Professor Cornell Dyer. I don’t know what he did. I don’t want to know.”

 

              “The quack in the motorhome that parks on the hill?” Marsha stared at Sheriff Matt as if he’d lost his mind.

 

              “He’s not a quack,” Trudy insisted. “He’s our first line of defense. Always has been.”

 

              “Bilking the county over its ill-gotten cash, no doubt,” Marsha said, looking smugly at Trudy when the soul flower stayed blue.

 

              “Oh, he’s quite inexpensive,” Matt agreed. “The grand tab for werewolf cleaning was three extra-large pizzas with extra cheese, ten gallons of gas, and I had to wash and wax his motorhome. I don’t want to know what he does about vampires. But Trudy can tell you when you guys are both somewhere I can’t hear.”

 

              Eircheard frowned at his flower, as true blue as ever.

 

              “I’m impressed,” he admitted reluctantly. “It’s not like the Fir Blog to be so honest when you don’t want to be. I’d say it falls on me to keep my part and confess my crimes, which don’t include selling good information to a young lassie at a fair price. As far as bilking the county and ill-gotten gold, well, I don’t want to be dealing this way any more than any of you. But let me ask you something, Sandra. Believe in leprechauns, I take it? Have you ever seen a young leprechaun? Have you ever seen a woman leprechaun? I know you haven’t.  And what would your kind think if you had no women to make babies and your whole population was made of aging men? Would you call the situation desperate? I ask because that’s what happened to us leprechauns. And we’ve been jumping into the future ever since trying to keep our people from going out for good. Think that wrong, do you? Are you thinking that we should just turn over all our gold, good luck, and secrets to you damned Fir Blog and just find a quite way to rot away so we don’t smell too much and let your damned Fir Blog have your way with the planet? Huh?” Eircheard banged his first on the table, and everyone jumped. “Maybe you be thinking that you’re better than us. After all, you’ve got better weapons, you do. Maybe after you bury each last one of us you can finish destroying the trees and each other in that ‘war’ thing you fools invented. Blow us all up, why don’t you!”

 

              Eircheard sprang to his feet and pointed a finger at Sandra.

 

              “What’s you ask all the time? If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound, you ask? IN A FOREST AND NOBODY HEARS IT! Do you think that only you Fir Blog got ears, do you? Do you need me to tell you that if a tree falls the TREE heard it and so did every wood sprite for the next thirty miles! The only deaf ones be the Fir Blog what aren’t in the forest to begin with because they be too busy with their burning and shooting and throwing their gases in the sky, and toxins in the rivers! But no! You have the guns so you must be right!”

 

              “Eircheard, calm down, love,” Trudy patted his side. “We only want to know what you were going to do about becoming extinct.”

 

              Trudy’s touch calmed him instantly. Miraculously, Eircheard stopped shouting, settled into his chair, and held up his palms.

 

              “Lads and lasses, I’m sorry about my outburst. I get angry every time I remember when that Ed Calkins fellow made fun of us in front of our women. It wasn’t all his fault; we treated them badly…like slaves we couldn’t sell. The Milesians let their women boss them around. The truth is, the Milesians were just another tribe of the Fir Blog, but our women folk didn’t care. Which do you think they chose when the conquerors drove us underground? Anyway, most of them didn’t stay with the Milesians or they’d have smarter children, you see. Most of our women must have gone to the future, where a woman can do anything a man does. That’s why I bargained for the stolen babies. Eighty in all, there were. If Clancy has been snatching more, it’s not part of my deal. Do you see what I’m getting at? Leprechaun genes are recessive to even the most recessive human genes, like blonde hair and blue eyes. If a baby has both, its less likely the gene pot has been stirred too much. So when a baby looks like a leprechaun with eyes that aren’t blue or brown and hair that isn’t blond or black, it’s when a leprechaun mates with someone with blond hair and blue eyes, like Trudy’s father had.”

 

              “I’m not a leprechaun,” Trudy protested weakly.

 

            For the first time since Eircheard set the soul flower on the table, the imaginary flower actually changed color. For a moment, no one spoke. Then Matt cleared his throat and said, “Tell us more about the stolen babies.”

 

              “Now here’s where you have to understand it was a different time and place. The sidhe – fairies, as you call them – have to mix blood with human stock every few generations or so. If they don’t, well, humans become what they are now, and the sidhe folk just go their own way with no one to enchant the land. We teleported to a place and time in Ed Calkins’ imagination, when we gave up on trying to mate with Milesians woman folk who would have nothing to do with us unless we paid them. The place the crazy vampire conjured served us well, as no humans were there to kidnap us for ransom in gold. Seeing the land of Ed Calkins’ Tara was rich with sidhe, we cut him a deal as he controlled all the portals except the one we leprechauns used to get in. See, if we ever use that portal, we’d go back to our time and to the problems we left to solve. Soon, the brownies would be stealing human babies that they would raise and, when it came time, marry and mate with. We bargained that the brownies would take eighty extra girls, raise them, and marry them to us instead of their own when they came of age. We specifical wanted blond hair and blue eyes from modern times, as it would be more likely that none of them had other sidhe blood, you see.”

 

              “Kidnapping babies,” Sandra breathed, eyes wide.

 

All heads turned to look at the blonde haired, blue-eyed, unsmiling teen. Sandra lifted her chin and added tersely, “I have a problem with that,”

 

              “Ah lass, it’s not like they don’t leave something in their place. It’s more like swapping babies, a human for a changeling, than anything else. It’s a fair trade and most new mothers don’t even know about it. The only problem is that modern mothers don’t believe in changelings, so the brownies don’t bother and leave the crib empty.”

 

              “So it is kidnapping.” Sandra cupped her hands around her belly, as if to protect her babies from the imminent threat.

 

              “Kidnapping of humans. Why should the sidhe care? Tell me, lass, how many times have you set up a leprechaun trapper in hopes of gold?”

 

              Sandra blushed. “I never thought of – still stealing children is cruel.”

 

              “Cruel to who? Not the children, I tell you. Brownies are the best parents of any of the folks. They work hard, play hard, and are very caring. Any children they raise know how to do those three things. And schooling you might be wondering about? We leprechauns took that upon ourselves, we did. Those girls know more about the earth, the sky, and good luck at six than your clueless college grads at twenty two, I tell you. Those girls will know everything that you Fir Blog teach in your high school, they will, - except how to drive a car. But they’ll know a great deal more, too. Any college would be lucky to have them. They can get their degrees right here in Jenson.”

 

              “Just so you know,” Trudy broke in with another toss of her head. “Eircheard forfeited his wife when he bought me. I wouldn’t have to compete with an eighteen-year-old when were both fifty-two.”

 

              Matt cocked his head. “Wait. Why eighteen? Girls came of age at fourteen until the last century.”

 

              “We stand a better chance in modern times, I admit. Aged leprechauns might have trouble without some pill, you know…making a baby I mean. That’s why I had to deal with the vampire to make it work. He controls the portals. When the girls turn eighteen, we’ll make a hidden settlement like we did in the old country. Except that the settlement will be above-ground where we can be in nature. That’s why Beulah County works for us. The girls can attend Jenson and give birth at Jenson Memorial Hospital without being asked too many questions they can’t answer. The problem is: what is that crazy vampire up to? I couldn’t bargain for a ‘get out of Tara free’ card. It almost ruined me to get a portal to Tara and Beulah, running from my shop to that sacred hill. The problem there, if one goes, someone else has to come. It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what my papa’s been working on. That’s why girls go missing around the old Fisher place, I tell you. He’s been sending them to Tara, so the portal will spit us out when the time comes. He’s not stealing babies; you can be sure. It’s too expensive to raise them and he doesn’t give a fig about leprechaun culture, so he’s not schooling them either. I doubt he’s finished. I’d bet he’s selling them to any sidhe willing to pay. Can’t say how he gets them. Can’t say how he transports them, maybe the same way he’s doing the moonshine, but he’s not going to stop until he’s got one hundred and sixty. He's not going to care about blue eyes or blond hair, either, if I know my old man, Clancy.”

 

              “We’ve had missing girls, mostly runaways we assumed,” Matt admitted. “But we’ve had nowhere near one hundred and sixty. Nor have we had any complaints about missing babies.”

 

              “But you’re asking the wrong question. The babies could have come from anywhere at any time. The question you should be asking is: how did he get them through the portal? That’s why Beulah has brownies now. Eighty of them had to go through the portal so eighty could come. The same with the missing young lasses. Clancy can’t teleport; he has to use a portal. Ed Calkins would not allow the use of his portals for that purpose. Likely, Clancy only has the portal near the distillery, the same one he’s using for transferring moonshine. In that case, all of the girls he’s kidnapped come to that same place, no matter where they were initially taken. So when that lass, Kimberly went missing, you were right to go to Fisher Farm.”

 

              “Human trafficking is human trafficking,” Sandra objected. “My father always wors a pin under my collar to keep the sidhe away.”

 

              “Leprechauns are not part of the sidhe,” Eircheard sneered. “We were banished to their lands when the Fir Blog cheated us, dividing up the island into ‘above the ground’ and ‘below the ground.’ Guess which we leprechauns got. It’s you Fir Blog that can’t be trusted. Great luck it would be if a pin could keep your kind away.”

 

              “Well, my father said leprechauns are fairies that other fairies didn’t like.” Sandra said with a toss of her head and a smug expression.

 

              “Call me a fairy again and I’ll not be so civil.”

 

              “I’ll quit calling you a ‘fairy’ when you quit calling me ‘Fir Blog.”

 

            They both glared at each other. Eircheard softened first.

 

              “Fair enough, I suppose,” he relented. “I’ll not use the term again. But you must understand. Clancy was my father, but he went back on his word many centuries ago and he’s a cluricahn now. He’ll not be going into the future with the other leprechauns. Nor did the other leprechauns have an agreement with him. We don’t do business with liars. He has his own reasons for clearing leprechauns from Tara. But we leprechauns have a different plan when our child brides come of age. We’re going to stake the vampire, we are – right in his own imagination. With no ‘Steward of Tara’ to imagine the land, it will disappear and everyone in it will be sucked through portals regardless of ownership or willingness. That’s why I paid so much to have a portal in my shop. Do you understand? I’m making a bridge between one time bubble to another away from too many prying eyes. Beulah County is a time bubble, understand. We’ll raise our wives and their children on nearby farms and such. It shouldn’t be too hard to keep them away for the Fir…I mean other people that don’t belong. We can send them to Jenson College so they can learn all that…outsiders know. Now, I know that eighty old men and eighty young women just appearing out of thin air is going to cause a few shock waves in the county. But people in Beulah are inclined to adapt and they go about their business without making some international fuss, like anywhere else would.” Eircheard gestured to the flower. “You can see I’m telling the truth.”

 

              “Great, a cult living in Beulah!” Marsha quipped.

 

              Three radios went off at once, and everyone jumped.

 

              “I have a report of a missing baby…” the dispatcher interrupted.

 

            But it was the complaint’s address that startled them. Matt was first to seek clarification. Surely, she meant one of the apartments in the building adjacent to where Trudy and Eircheard lived. No, the address was correct, and all eyes turned to Eircheard.

 

            “I’m not a baby snatcher!” he snapped, pointing to the soul flower. True blue.

 

Without discussion all five of left the room and headed to Trudy and Eircheard’s saltbox at the top of Pike Street.

 

            Eircheard fumbled for the key as their feet thudded on his front porch. But the door swung back on its own. No one was there. At least it looked that way to Sandra.

 

            Until she looked down.

 

              “A brownie!” Sandra squealed.

 

              The brownie was New Medication, which had bonded with Trudy in a bar the night of Ed Calkins’ wake. New Medication made the call, and he stared accusingly at Eircheard. The leprechaun in turn held up his soul flower. Still true blue.

 

            Matt glanced down at New Medication and then back at Eircheard. “It seems the confessing isn’t over yet.”

 

            “So it seems,” Eircheard admitted, gesturing to the door. “We might as well go inside.”

 

            The five humans and two brownies, which included New Medication’s wife Breeder A, settled in the living room the brownies share with Eircheard and Trudy. Breeder A made tea for the guests, which Sandra served since Breeder A couldn’t lift the cups. Once everyone had a cup, New Medication explained why he made the call.  Basically, the brownies feared one or both were barren since they’d tried to conceive for an entire year. It was either that or – and here New Medication shot incriminating looks at Eircheard who calmly pointed to his true blue soul flower as proof of his innocence – that someone was stealing their babies.

 

            But all four humans – and Eircheard – pointed out explained it was too early to stop trying and reassured the brownies that no one was stealing their babies.

 

              Sandra and Marsha then admitted that they were going through a rough patch as well. Sandra had become clingy and needy while Marsha was jealous and overwhelmed. Matt suggested Sandra might feel less needy if she and Marsha had an agreement about how Sandra would survive when the boys were born should Marsha and Sandra split.

 

              “That type of agreement is premature,” Marsha promised. “If I still have a job and a life, I have no reason to leave just yet. Maybe the whole thing will work itself out. We’ve both been under a lot of pressure lately.”

 

            “Then the plan is the same,” Matt promised as well. “I will use my pull to find a homestead for the couple with enough land for a small farm. Now, that might take a year or more. In the meantime, Beulah County will continue paying for your lodging.”

 

Sandra relaxed and agreed that she would keep claiming to be twenty-one. That made Marsha relax, too.

 

              Finally, Trudy and Eircheard admitted that they’d been having problems since Trudy went to the hospital the night before Marsha’s first day with her. It wasn’t that they fought. It wasn’t that they didn’t make love. It was that Eircheard wanted her to promise something.

 

              “Don’t ever say it,” Trudy told him. “Don’t say it because I love you; Because if you do, you’ll know the answer and I’ll have to leave if you don’t kick me out. I’ll be as empty as I always was, without a penny or friend to my name.”

 

              Tears came to the old leprechaun’s eyes. Everyone, including the brownies, knew they were talking about Trudy’s drinking and that she should stop.

 

              “It wouldn’t be like it was before, love,” Eircheard said with an actual quaver in his voice. “You’d leave with your half of everything. I know at some point that I’m going to say it. I know that I should say it. I know that I have to say it. But I can’t say it because I am just not ready to give you up. So I’m putting it off, hoping that the problem goes away.”

 

              They were friends after that, especially the humans and leprechaun. It had been a long time for Matt that he could be so open with someone other than his wife. Sandra and Marsha felt legitimate and respected. Trudy felt supported. Eircheard, besides the wife he knew so well, but loved her anyway, felt a new respect for three honest people; even though they were Fir Blogs.