Calling Up Trouble in More Than One Form

                 

An Important Notice to Readers...

     Although this fiction blog is illustrated with photos of dolls, and dollhouse miniatures, the language and content of the storyline is intended for an adult audience.  Please be advised.

Thank You,

The Author

                         

Brian explains things to Fr. Kevin

    "Aye, laddie. It be me what ya eyes are seein'.  I am no small happy to see that yourself is no worse for the wear after your journey.  Canna say I was not a wee bit in angst over the whole shenanigans."

     "You knew?  You knew I went...went back in time."

     "Aye.  The Sidhe are well aware when the here and now is shaken.  Happens more than most mortals imagine.  They just keep their wee mouths closed about it all, less the common folk think them touched in the noggin'"  He rolled his finger about his head, and crossed his tiny brown eyes.  "Just agreed that it is far better to have you here than there."  He ran a hand over his lips, wiping away any trace of honey, and then licked his palm clean.  "And the lesson?  You've discovered it?"

     "Lesson?  I'm not sure what you mean.  All I know is one minute I was standing in a bank vault in 2014, and the next I find myself 116 years in the past!  No clue how...or why, for that matter.  If there was a lesson in all of that, then I've surely missed it.  I'm just grateful to the Lord Almighty that I'm back here in one piece."

      The little man made a clucking noise, and shook his head in disgust.  "I'd have thought himself a much wiser mortal than it appears.  How can ya not have alearned yourself to the lesson?  Your Granny would be most disappointed in her wee laddie."

       His indignation rising, Fr. Kevin shot up from the sofa, remembering the state of his head and stomach too late to prevent the pounding and rolling.  The fact that the little man had not made an appearance in several months, and was now here to scold him, rankled his pride.  "Look, my friend,  I'm just flat out lucky to have made it back home alive.  Did you know I ended up with cholera?  Cholera, for pete's sake!  People died from that disease in 1849!  A lot of them!  The same thing could've happened to me, and you sit here chewing me out because I didn't learn some life altering lesson?"  He lowered his lanky body back down, this time slower, and with deliberate care.
"Frankly, I think you're being entirely insensitive to what I've been through."

         The clobhair-ceann (clurichaun) slid his small body off the the sofa, and took possession of the bottle of Guinness still left from Maureen's earlier ministrations.  "Himself is far too surly to deal with the fey.  Me thinks ya should take a deep breath and calm your fire down a mite.  I offer only what I know.  A lesson unlearned leads to yet another challenge.  One that grows with your lack of understanding."

       "Are you telling me this could happen again?  That I could just be...swept away again into someone else's life?"  The thought chilled him, and he let out an involuntary shudder.

       The wee figure shrugged his shoulders.  "Can not say, laddie.  The truth is..."  He paused, taking a long sip from the bottle in his hand. "... everything that turns does so for a reason.  Every leaf that falls, every tear that's shed, every kiss that's given...has a purpose.  There is no random.  Your adventure?  Not a thing of chance.  You best figure out the why of it, is all I'm sayn'."  Brian paused a moment, and examined the items still strewn on the floor of the rectory's parlor.  "But, your quest is not the reason I'm here."  He pointed to the trampled herbs and flowers, and the food he had not yet devoured.  "I'm here about this."

        Kevin glanced at the menagerie left on his carpet.  He had seen it earlier, but in his frantic attempt to locate Roxanne, had paid it little mind.  Then, his physical state took over all consideration, and the mess, plus the reason it was there, went unattended.  "Yeah.  I was wondering why this stuff is all over my floor.  I meant to ask Maureen, but then things got...confused, and she and Ted left.  I wasn't in the mood to discuss what had happened, so I was glad to see them go."  He gathered a crushed daisy in his hand, and looked at it oddly.  You're here because of this stuff?"

          Brian nodded, his odd, little face grim.  "Aye.  I was officially called."

          For a second, confusion reigned, and then the priest remembered a certain evening a year earlier, when he had first set out his own fairy circle.  "These items.  They're part of a fairy circle."

           "Aye.  That it is, laddie."

           "But...who?  How?"

           He finished the ale with a long gulp, smacking his lips over the last drop. "The wee red head.  She set out the items, then called upon the Sidhe.  I'd not heard the greeting in a long, long while.  Would have been better in the old tongue, but still quite impressive in it's strength."

            "Maureen?  She called a fairy circle?  Here in the rectory?"

            The clurichaun raised one dark eyebrow.  "Aye.  As did himself several moons ago.  But the sweet flanna (red headed girl) went a step further, and recited the old invitation.  Any fey in the area could not have resisted."

            The priest gave the room a once over, fighting the urge to check the closets and the space under the furniture.  "They'd come here?  Right now?  To the rectory."

             "Relax, laddie.  I be the only one here in the present."  He moved in closer to the priest, and in a voice not much louder than a spirit's whisper, added, "But the flanna...she has surely caught the attention of 'Herself'."

             "Herself?  Who do you mean?"  The priest's voice seemed to echo around the room, and the little man shushed him with a warning finger pressed to his lips.  "The one who is above all others.  Her Majesty...Meadhbh."

             It took only a second for Kevin to translate the Gaelic.  "Maeve?  You mean THE Maeve?"

            Brian waved his arms frantically, willing him to lower his voice.  "Aye.  She be the one.  Tis quite rare for her to make an appearance among the common folk, especially this far from the Ole Country.  Why she was here, I canna say.  But here she was, called to this place by the flanna's circle and greeting."

             Racking his brain for what knowledge he could, was more than difficult in his present state.  "So...her appearance here?  Is it a good thing?  Or bad?"

             Brian shrugged, his little shoulders touching the lobes of his pointy ears.  "Canna say for sure.  Her Majesty's moods change with the shifting of the wind.  History has proved that it is best not to have  Meadhbh's scrutiny.  She can find humans to be...quite amusing.  It be best that she forget entirely your flanna, though she has been known to have favorites among the common folk."

            The hammer in his head vibrated against his temples.  Maureen involved with the Sidhe was an issue with so many levels of trouble, it was hard to fathom where to begin.
                                                       

Maureen calls up trouble

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         If the state of her apartment was any indication, Roxanne Spinelli's life was in total disarray.  Every item of clothing she owned was out of drawers and closets, and in piles around her studio apartment.  Her one piece of good luggage was open on the bed, bits and pieces of her belongings stuffed inside with little thought on how they would look when they were taken out at a later date.  Her purse was turned over on it's side, her checkbook, and cash laid out on the table in neat little piles. But it was the large bouquet of flowers stuffed in her emptied cookie jar that caused her the most confusion.  The card next to the arrangement read,  To Roxie...best of luck in your next chapter!  We will miss you!
The message was signed Rachel, Tiffany and Ruth, three of her best friends from the strip club where she danced.

          Miss her?  Where the hell was she going?  While she was busy barely surviving in 1849, what in God's name was the crazy woman dong here in her body?   And where was Kevin?  She had tried repeatedly to reach his cell, but the calls all went directly to voice mail.  Had he made it out of the past? And if he hadn't, just what could she even do about it?

           She wondered if he had a land phone, and reasoned that it being the rectory, one would be  necessary.  Dialing directory assistance, she asked for the number for Holy Family rectory in Dollyville, Massachusetts, and waited, breath held, as the phone rang several times.

Roxanne tries to reach Kevin

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Storms Ahead

            The sky had turned a muddy, green color by the time Beckett was wrapping things up at the station, and he could hear the first rumblings of thunder several miles off in the distance.  The weather matched his foul mood, his head tied up with problems both at home and abroad.  The Powers that Be were significantly unhappy with the way things had gone down in Mexico, and were pressing for his return to tie up lose ends.  It wasn't that he disagreed with their take on the situation.  What should have been an easy drop and out, had turned into a major cluster fuck, due entirely to his wife's presence on the mission.  He owed his reputation an opportunity to return and make things right.

         But that wasn't going to happen when the psycho bitch was still roaming around on the outskirts of his life, another situation in which he was fully to blame.  There was no reason on earth that this woman could not be caught.  His men were trained operatives, used to tracking people all the time.  She seemed to have ungodly luck in getting out of tight corners, and remaining hidden.   She was brilliant.  No doubt about that.  It was that crazy genius of hers that drew him in the first place.  An intellect that matched his own in every way.  Stunning good looks, yes, but it was her mind that kept him hooked like a fish on the line.  So, it shouldn't be any surprise that she was still in the game, unwilling to give up, or give in.

          His phone pinged with an incoming message, and he reached for it, expecting that it would be Maureen checking in on his arrival.  But the number on the screen was one he didn't recognize, and the fact that it was a media message gave him pause.  He pressed the screen, and the image appeared, all white flesh, with just the sliver of red at her throat.  For a second he stared at the photo, the ribbon around her neck reminding him how easy a human throat was to cut.  Then, he deleted the message, and tossed the phone on the seat next to him, the first heavy rain drops hitting his windshield with a barrage of splats.
                                     

Copyright  Victoria T. Rocus 2014
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