~~~
At last the professor seemed to look up and notice that the grassy meadow was beginning a bit of an incline towards the tree line and that they were only a good hundred feet or so from the first burly scrub oak ahead of them. He flashed his LED light about a little looking for more trace of the tracks he was chasing and seemingly did not find any. Turning the light off and using the moon he paused to listen and scanned the tree line.
“The last track I saw was in the mud of that little stream about a hundred feet back…” the professor spoke very low and quietly.
James hesitated and cleared his throat cautiously before answering. “Um…Professor…I think that stream was a good couple hundred yards back.”
“Really?” Professor Byrne replied.
He turned back and scanned the field from which they were emerging. In the distance he saw the freeway nearly four miles away across the meadow and the few late-night headlights zipping one direction and taillights headed up the slight incline towards Placerville. Professor Byrne was thinking to himself, that they’d probably lost the trail and was trying to decide just how disappointed he thought he should feel about it having found such a fresh Leprechaun dropping.
“So…” James tried carefully. “Why is it, do you think, that we have so many notions about Leprechauns? Like…why is it we connect them to rainbows and pots of gold?”
“Hmmm,” the professor nodded and replied with fairly little thought, still contemplating his next moves. “That would be a lot of foolish traditions I imagine. My research seems to provide evidence that there are different species of the genus Lepre. Perhaps it’s…not quite as distinct as that. Perhaps they’re all genus Lepre, species chaunensis, but more a question of race.”
“So you mean like human skin tones that we sometimes classify as a race?”
Again Byrne nodded. “I suppose…if you still cling to that notion. There’s really no difference in humans at that point though is there? I mean, why is it we say an African American is ‘black’ and a Caucasian person is ‘white’ even with the wide variety of color among each, yet we don’t differentiate a red-head and a brunette, or blue eyes as opposed to brown as a so-called race?”
“I suppose,” James replied. “But what has that to do with Leprechaun stories?”
“Well…” the professor replied with a smirk and finally made eye contact. “It means two things to me. First, if you know of any cute red-heads nearing retirement age and are single, you should refer me. …I have a thing for redheads.
But secondly, the differences in Leprechauns seem to be just enough to warrant actually naming them different species. And I think that’s why we might have some odd traditions. For instance, imagine that there are three species of Leprechauns in the world much like there were Homo neanderthalensis, Homo rhodesiensis and Homo antecessor all before Homo erectus emerged and developed into Homo sapiens. Now also suppose that they had unique traits, such as the Homo antecessor version of Leprechaun walks around upright all the time and perhaps even wears clothing of some kind or another and lives primarily in Ireland, while the Homo neanderthalensis version of Leprechauns tend to crawl around on all fours more often, don’t wear clothes, exist only by foraging, etc., etc.
Do you see?”
“Um…yeah. I guess I could kind of see that.” James had to take it in for a moment. “So, are we saying maybe some of them used a chamber pot in Ireland and so someone literally found a pot of gold? Like…a chamber pot of gold?
The professor took a few steps forward and clapped his young student on the shoulder in a congratulatory manner. “That’s it, Mr. Peterson. Before long I’ll have you hypothesizing like a regular anthropologist.”
Turning back and scanning the tree line one last time Professor Byrne added, “Who knows? Ireland can be a damp place at times. Perhaps someone even found the said chamber pot of gold in an area where rainbows were glimmering around it, eh?”
After nearly two minutes of staring intently into the forest on the part of both the professor and the student, James decided to speak up and unbeknownst to him perhaps help the professor make up his mind about when to quit.
“Do you think we’re done for tonight then Professor Byrne?”
But then, the professor held up one finger in a gesture suggesting James either wait a moment or to be still. James decided to do both. He heard faint breezes in the trees and perhaps a frog or toad not far away croaking occasionally but wasn’t sure what changed Byrne’s demeanor again suddenly.
“Do you hear that?” Byrne asked so quietly it was almost like he mouthed it without noise.
James waited. He did not hear it.
“What?” he croaked as softly as he could.
The professor once again gave James eye contact and then pointed to his lips, and with exaggerated motions demonstrated chewing. Only it was an odd motion. He was pulling his lips in and seemed to be gumming at something.
“Eating?”
Byrne gave James the ‘OK’ symbol with his forefinger and thumb. Then he smacked his lips again and tried to make them create the sloppy, slurpy noise James’ own grandmother made when she’d join his family for dinner but forgot her dentures. It always disgusted the young man in his youth and he held a shiver back as the Professor did it. But then the professor stopped and made a motion to his ear as though he were listening. After another few seconds he pointed dramatically to his far left and began very slowly moving in that direction.
About fifty feet away the professor seemed to have spotted something on the ground again and he swung his arm back and motioned for James to come around his side and join him. They were still about the same distance from the tree line, but there was a very definite sharper incline up into the forest at that point and the younger man quickly and easily made out a very small foot path or animal trail leading up into the trees. Had he not been hunting for Leprechauns James might have thought it was a little rabbit trail, or quail path.
The professor bent very low to the ground and got on his knees and then sat upon his legs. He cupped his little LED flashlight as tightly as he could so as to let a very dim and narrow beam through his fingers to the dirt below. Sure enough there was another collection of soil, this time much larger and James could see at least one sparkle amongst it again.
“Would you see if you can find any gold while I hold the flashlight?” Byrne asked.
Though he did kneel down quietly next to the professor, his face was turned in a grimace and he had to ask, “Why am I the one that has to pick through the poop?”
“Because I thought you could keep any gold you find. You want to be rewarded a bit for this excursion don’t you, Mr. Peterson?”
James stared at the old man’s face for a moment, puzzling over the thought that if they really caught a new species, an actual Leprechaun, it might be better to get his name in a published article than to have a couple hundred dollars of gold. He’d forgotten the professor’s admonishment that he couldn’t ever publish for fear of ridicule in his excitement. But then the professor’s face turned very serious.
“And because this is another bit of a test for you, isn’t it?”
James shook his head and whispered, “What do you mean?”
“Well…” Byrne replied, eyes penetrating. “You don’t think you can start on a career path with the IPMA and not have someone watching over you, do you? Someone mentoring you a bit?”
James Peterson stared, open-jawed for a few seconds, coming to a realization. Then he nodded as the professor patiently watched, much more intently this time, and picked through the soil.
“Besides,” Byrne added. “It’s not like this is anywhere near as disgusting as some of the other things you might come across in the faerie world. Hey…be sure to look for flakes or even any powder. I may want a small piece or two to do an analysis.”
Once James had picked out three additional pea-sized nuggets and one quarter-inch wide f
lake the professor took out a plastic sandwich baggy and handed it to him. James put in the gold and the other nugget from the first pile he’d stored in his pocket. Then Byrne directed him to store it back in his pocket.
The professor then handed him another sandwich baggy and said, “Scoop up some of the excrement. I really want to do a chemical analysis of that, for sure.”
James made a grunt of disgust but did it anyway. The so-called poo wasn’t really that anyway. It was very loose, very dry and very fertile looking soil, much like one would want for farming or gardening. Having completed the task, Byrne snatched back the second baggy and pocketed it quickly, and then turned off his LED.
Turning to look into the tree line, the professor pointed and started moving in the direction of the little footpath James had noticed before. As they stepped up the incline between the first two craggy scrub oaks and took a handful each of a maple’s trunk to pull them up onto the first rise of dirt James noticed two footprints that matched the one around the first pile they had inspected further out into the meadow. They were definitely on to something.
Once they had climbed through several trees up a lumpy and sharp incline and got to a flat, Professor Byrne stopped and pointed.
“Do you see that?”
His voice was quiet, but it sounded more as though excitement took his breath than any effort he was making to keep noises low.
There, on a fallen tree, sat something relatively toad-like in the mottled light of the moon through the leaves. It was smacking its lips around in a motion similar to cattle and occasionally opened its lips making the disturbing grandma-smacking noise. This little creature was the source, and though it looked very much like an over-sized toad, it didn’t move or eat like one.
While they watched, stunned, the creature sat back on its haunches and raised its forearms placing something it was holding into its mouth to add to its chewing. The mass looked like a bit of leaves, dirt and perhaps a mushroom. It was all the stuff that amassed on the floor of a forest. Leprechauns, it appeared to James’ understanding, were part of the balance of the ecosystem utilizing and adding in the decay of the detritus all about him.
“That’s one, isn’t it?” the young man asked reverently.
“Um-hmm,” the older replied in acknowledgement.
After a moment, James added, “Not wearing clothes, though, eh?”
As best as he could, the professor seemed to think it was another moment to lecture and he turned just slowly and carefully enough to try to whisper, “Of course not. The little green hat and outfit, buckled shoes crap! All that seems to have come from some idiot in Ballymoney, Northern Ireland back in 1838. Nearly as I can tell, he happened to get ahold of a true or half Leprechaun, had his wife make up a little doll’s outfit for him and paraded him around town during a festival. Kept him in a cage when he wasn’t on a leash.”
The professor turned back to watch their Leprechaun, who by that point had either heard or smelled or seen them and was eyeing them suspiciously. It stood up on its hind legs, which were also reminiscent of a toad’s, and seemed to place his hands akimbo upon his hips all the while maintaining his chewing.
“The fool must have abused the poor creature, or something, because he was found dead after a week of parading the creature around, in the middle of the forest with bite marks all about him. …Tiny bite marks,” the professor added.
In the moment the professor concluded, the creature bent forward on the fallen tree and planted its forearms muscularly upon it, then lurched forward and began a peculiar rough barking sound. After four or five of the notes had been sounded, it then pulled back and barred its teeth, which were sharp and silvery-looking in the moonlight.
James and the Professor looked at one another in alarm.
“Mr. Peterson?” the professor said nervously. “I don’t think we’re going to capture a Leprechaun for our studies tonight.”
He grasped the young student’s upper arm tightly and just before Byrne swung the two of them together around to make a run for it, four more of the Leprechauns came hopping up in close proximity to the first through the forest and joined it in a session of barking followed by growls and teeth-baring. The threat was quickly growing into one of a pack chase.
“Run!” Byrne said harshly within inches of James’ face.
And they did.
The scrub oaks and other foliage scratched at their arms and faces as they ducked and hurried to exit the forest only a couple hundred feet away. James could hear the patter of what sounded like several cats running full bore, but the sound was intimidating rather than humorous.
Into the meadow the pair burst and made a flat out run, James a couple steps ahead of the aging professor. They were headed to the car park along the freeway on the far side of the meadow, desperately trying to get safe within Byrne’s old beater wagon, but it was miles off and desperation was the only thing continuing their breathless run.
“Yee-oowwww!” Professor Byrne howled immediately behind James.
James turned as he continued to run and asked, out of breath, “Are…you…okay…professor?”
What he saw was very disturbing indeed. The professor had one Leprechaun frog-thing on his upper right arm gnawing away, another on his left shoulder, and at the top of his head there was perched a third tugging at the hair painfully to hold on while simultaneously lunging with its open mouthful of metal-looking teeth at bald spots upon the professor’s scalp. Behind were at least two or three more Leprechauns dashing about, making lunges for the professor’s legs and smashing down grass stalks just as quickly as James and the professors scissoring legs could.
“Aiiieee-ah! What in the…!?!” James exclaimed.
But Professor Byrne urged him on. “Run! Just run, James!”
Another two hundred yards and they had started to make a dent in the great expanse of the meadow which now seemed to be a hundred miles across in their desperation. James wasn’t even sure he could run for the near hour it might take to get all the way across to the freeway. He decided then and there that his regimen for preparing for the IPMA Interns’ physical the next Fall would have to include actual exercise and no more virtual boards and sports games on his gaming console.
Finally, Professor Byrne managed a burst of speed and caught up alongside James. He seemed to be holding something out for the young man.
“James… … James… …. Here! Take this…and squeeze it tight in your left hand!”
With that the object was plopped in James’ right hand from where the professor had caught up to him. He began squeezing it with all his might, but nothing was happening.
“Professor!” James turned his head to try to see the Professor, but could see him nowhere.
There was quite a lot of ruckus and grasses being trampled right nearby, accompanied by the gnashing of teeth and low growls of the Leprechaun closing in on James quickly. Still, after a complete circle with a few backwards steps to keep his momentum going he decided either the professor fell and he needed to go back for him, or…the professor was a goner.
“Professor?” James yelled again, this time coming to a stop, despite the closing in of several Leprechauns.
“Keep moving, you fool!” the professor’s voice came, as though it were in motion and ran straight past James.
“But…nothing’s happening!?”
“I told you the left hand James! LEFT hand!”
James began running and passed the stone he’d received from the professor into his left hand after a quick look at it. It seemed to be a fairly ordinary rounded river-bed pebble except that in the last moment there appeared a flash of blue light from within it, swirling about. He closed his hand upon it tightly and continued running.
Within a few moments the noise of the Leprechauns had subsided, but James kept running. Ahead he could see the grasses swishing and moving about and thought perhaps the Leprechauns had managed to get in front of him as he paused. Yet wha
tever it was continued for several minutes in the direction of the car park.
“Professor?” James called again.
The rustling ahead slowed and eventually stopped. James realized he probably made a mistake and should have stayed quiet until he had long passed whatever was running in the meadow before him. Yet no threat came.
“Professor? The stone isn’t working!” he said loudly.
“Well, I should say it is!” the professor’s voice carried from directly in front of him.
While James still looked about to see where Byrne might have ducked and hidden, the professor held his left palm outwards before him as the image of his full body glimmered into view. Another pebble lay in it, flashing blue occasionally.
“I can’t see you at all!” Byrne added as a final statement on the efficacy of the pebble.
James looked down at his legs. Surely enough there was nothing there. The grass beneath was trampled and laid flat out ahead of him, but there were no shoes, no legs. The young man held out his right hand splayed out in front of himself in a game of how-many-fingers-have-I-got and yet, there was nothing there. None! James found himself answering and he laughed out loud.
“Loosen your grip on the stone, James,” Byrne said in a friendly tone.
James did and then his own hands and body came glimmering back into view.
“Wow!” the young man whistled. “That’s amazing!”
“No…” Byrne answered. “I’d say that was lucky. Lucky that I thought of bringing those last minute. Perhaps the luck of the Irish then?”
The professor returned a few steps to James and put his arm around the young man’s shoulders as they continued on in a much slower pace towards the freeway and carpark. Behind them by increasing distance the Leprechauns seemed to have fixated on something in the field and were thrashing about. James felt poorly about who or what they might have ended up setting them upon, but he was grateful the little creatures were no longer at his heels.
“We didn’t capture one…” James finally stated dejectedly.
“No, Mr. Peterson. We did not capture one tonight.”
After a few more strides through the meadow, Professor Byrne nodded heavily a few times and then added, “James…I’m thinking it would probably be best if you didn’t mention our little field trip to your IPMA mentor. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” James readily replied.
The professor chortled. “Good. Maybe we’ll get another chance then.”
~ The End ~
About the Author
IPMA (Institute for the Preservation of Magical Artifacts) historian P. Edward Auman is known to house a collection of would-be Leprechaun droppings in his privately maintained museum collection, though none know the greater monetary value of them aside from any anthropological study of faeries. Historian Auman is also said to fund and manage his own investigations when the Institute has deemed a particular situation undesirable. These are mostly known only as rumors and hearsay among the IPMA agency. However, the activity for which Eddie is most famously known is his creation of 43 clones to assist him in all of his many ventures. 42 clones survive today, following a mishap with a gene-splice bio-fuel algae agent, to which Eddie responded, “42’s probably good enough. It is the normally accepted answer to the Universe and everything in it anyway.”
Troll Brother – Children’s/YA Contemporary Fantasy Novel – 2013
The Old Silk Hat, A Frosty The Snowman Prequel – An IPMA Short – 2012
Seeing Devils: An IPMA Adventure for Halloween 2013 – An IPMA Short – 2013
Speak Rain – Novel – 2013
The Yeti Uprising: An IPMA Adventure for Christmas 2013
Revenge of the Sylph, The Yeti Uprising 2: An IPMA Adventure for Christmas 2014
Troll Brother 2: Little Brother Troll – TBR mid-2015
More to come 2015 and beyond!
Connect with Me Online:
www.TrollBrother.com
www.PEdwardAuman.com
www.IPMACreative.com
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