The Lunenburg Werewolf (20 page)

Liam looked down in time to see a great beast rearing up out of a patch of ground so pitchy black that it seemed to suck the starlight out of the night sky. Three old hags danced at his feet.

“That's the Bochdan of the Black Ground,” the Lutin said. “And his three sisters.”

And from underneath the shadow of the Bochdan purred a big fat old black pussy cat. “Hey, Mister Coal Shadow!” the Lutin called out.

The Lutin rode old Plodder even harder. The ground whizzed by below them.

“Slow down!” Liam called out.

“We're only getting started,” the Lutin replied.

Farther up the coastline, Liam stared down at what looked to be a legion of devils marching down into a coal mine with picks upon their shoulders. Mermaids and selkies waved at him from the waves as he flew by. A sea monster roared up out of the water and playfully splashed him.

“Look over here,” the Lutin sang out and pointed.

Liam looked in wonder as the Capstick Bigfoot stepped out of the woods and blinked up at them with his big beautiful soft brown eyes. Farther along, a shape that was small, sad, and lonely waved a flipper their way from the storm-tossed waters off Port Hood.

“How's that for a grand tour?” the Lutin shouted as they soared along over a stretch of the Northumberland Strait. The entire crew of the Phantom Ship toasted Liam, the Lutin, and Plodder as they passed overhead, raising great flaming flagons of hot spiced rum to the night sky.

Five babies waved their tiny thin-boned fingers from out of the dirt of the New Glasgow cemetery. The
Favourite
rose and sank again in the belly of Pictou Harbour. A bridge screeched at Liam and the Lutin as they flew past Parrsboro. The Kentville artist stood up and waved his paintbrush. Flames from Amherst and Caledonia Mills lit the midnight heavens. Curtains blew and ships sank and buried treasure twinkled from below and Ivy threw a spoon. The werewolf howled and Sophie's ghost wailed and the spirit of Captain Kidd laughed out loud and danced a jig with the Lady in Blue.

“Here we go now,” the Lutin shrieked as they passed over McNabs Island and raced neck and neck with a galloping ghostly mare.

Then he turned the horse in a hard left and headed back up toward Cape Breton, where he pulled old Plodder down to the earth, just outside of Liam's ramshackle barn.

“Home again, home again, jiggedy-jig,” said the Lutin.

“And where is my treasure?” Liam asked.

“Were you not looking as we flew?” the Lutin asked. “Were you that terrified that you closed your eyes tight?”

“I kept them open,” Liam said. “And all I saw was a bunch of old ghost stories.”

“That's the life and breath of this land you live in,” the Lutin replied. “No greater treasure can be found beyond a country's folklore.”

“Well that's all well and good,” said Liam disgustedly. “But I'm still out a very good horse.”

The Lutin looked at Plodder, who was still gasping and wheezing and very nearly at death's dark doorway.

“I don't think he was all that much to begin with,” the Lutin pointed out.

“Maybe not,” Liam said. “But Plodder has carried me for many a year. He has pulled my plow and filled my larder. I have laughed with that old horse and I have cried with him and there are more stories than I could ever remember that begin and end with that horse, who happens to be my very best friend.”

The Lutin thought about that. “Fair enough,” he finally said. And then he stood up on tiptoe, somehow stretching his tiny body high enough to reach old Plodder's left nostril. He blew a strong breath into the nostril and Plodder swelled up like an inflated bladder-float.

“Stop that!” Liam said in panic.

But the Lutin blew two more times. At the third blow in, Plodder snorted back out. He shook his body like a wet dog and every wrinkle and crease on that poor old nag flew off like it was nothing more than a handful of lint.

When the horse quit his shaking, Liam couldn't believe his eyes. There, standing before him, was Plodder, only years and years younger, looking stronger and faster than he had been in a long, long time.

“There,” the Lutin said. And then he loaded two large sacks upon Plodder's back.

“That's all the gold that you will ever need to live off,” the Lutin said. “Now what I want you to do is to ride out across the province and tell all the stories that I showed you tonight on that long gallop of ours. I want you to tell each story the best way you can, and if you can't remember a detail, feel free to make it up.”

And that's just what Liam did.

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