Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles Read online

  There were remnants of ancient bones and a few human skulls scattered about. I chose not to make direct eye contact with any of their empty eye sockets in an effort to bolster my courage. I followed the golden glow, looking for the source, kicking aside some old barrels and rubbish that had piled up over the ages, trying not to think of what, or rather who, was making the sound of crunching bones under my feet.

  “Are you all the way down?” called the captain from the shaft above me.

  “I think I am!” I yelled up stupidly, as I tend to say very stupid things when I’m nervous. “There’s something glowing down here. Maybe a small fire or lamp?”

  As I got closer to the light, I began to hear the most gorgeous harp music my ears have ever known. I reached the corner of the room, and there amongst some old crates was the baby itself, wrapped up safe and sound and fast asleep. (And yes, Rauri was not wrong—it was a fairly ugly baby, by both human and leprechaun standards.)

  Little did I know that I, too, would be fast asleep in a few moments, because the glow and music were coming from a jinx harp.1

  I had just picked up both the baby and the harp and stuffed them into my jacket, buttoning them up snugly for safekeeping, when I felt the overwhelming urge to take a good, hard nap. I gently laid back and cracked the back of my skull on the stone floor. I felt the warm trickle of blood beneath my hair and drifted off into a deep, jinx-harp-induced sleep.

  Twenty minutes later, wearing just my underwear and jacket, my legs covered in fresh scrapes, I was awakened by the ghoulish face of Pat Finch, who was now wearing large protective headphones, like an airport worker.

  “Jinx harp got ya, kid,” he laughed, as if my state was anything to laugh about.

  “The baby’s fine. And we sealed up the harp in a soundproof case,” said the captain, taking off her headphones. “But I’m afraid it was quite a struggle to pull you out of there in your unconscious state. Your trousers must have caught on something on the way up, and we lost them.”

  “Either you can go back down for them, as you’re the only one who fits in the hole, or we can get you a spare rain slicker,” added Pat Finch.

  I checked with the captain’s torch down the shaft and could just barely make out the silhouette of my trousers some ten meters below, hooked on the edge of a cornerstone, ripped and fluttering like the saddest flag of surrender. I decided it was not worth a second trip into the shaft and accepted the rain slicker that an officer handed to me. I tied it around my waist like a makeshift kilt. I pity those who had to see me in this state: glasses fogged up, plastic kilt, and scraped knees—everyone averted their eyes, except for Captain de Valera. She stepped toward me and put a gentle hand to rest on my shoulder, gazing at me with her mismatched eyes, and said sincerely: “Pull your miserable self together, Boyle, before I knock the daylights out of you. You’ve just been transferred. I want you to come work for me.”

  My pride and my knees were injured, but it seems I had passed some test of bravery that qualified me to start as a trainee in the Garda Special Unit of Tir Na Nog, one of the most ancient and enigmatic law enforcement agencies in Europe.

  Looking back on it, descending into a cave of bones to find a very ugly baby would be one of the easiest days that I would have in that first year under Captain Siobhán de Valera’s command.

  After that, things got complicated.

  * * *

  1 A jinx harp is probably the most pleasant weapon in all of Tir Na Nog. It’s not very complicated—just a regular harp that’s been buried with someone who died under mysterious circumstances, then dug up again on a full moon and baptized by a sheerie in one of the Floating Lakes. The harp, then bewitched, will sing, and its song will induce sleep in anyone who hears it. It’s a favorite weapon of the wee folk—perhaps because it’s nonlethal and subsequently not subject to fines from the Garda of Tir Na Nog.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE SCANDAL

  I returned to my shared flat in Galway that afternoon with orders to report to the offices of the Garda Special Unit in Killarney for the twelve-week training program. I was told to be there by nine P.M. sharp on Thursday—two days hence. Nine P.M. is the start of the normal workday for the Tir Na Nog Unit, as so much of the mischief of faerie folk happens after dark, and many of the suspects are nocturnal creatures by nature, such as clurichauns, who are slightly taller than leprechauns but much nastier, and the far darrig, who are disgusting-looking little red creatures with snouts and tails who are actually lovely in person.

  Dolores, my beautiful flatmate, was home for the first time in ages. She gave me a bear hug, spilling some of her industrial-sized margarita down my back, because that is her style. Dolores lives in the moment, and she’s never going to deny herself a margarita in the afternoon, no matter what you or anybody else says about it. She’s a delight, and probably the most unreliable legal guardian a boy could have.

  “I’d hate to see what the other guy’s pants look like,” she said in reference to my impromptu kilt, because Dolores always says hilarious things, and she knows exactly how to cheer me up.

  Dolores is not a blood relative of mine, which makes her an unusual choice for a court-appointed guardian. Dolores was a student getting university credit to help my parents at the National Museum at the time of the scandal.

  The scandal must be addressed sooner or later, so let’s do it right now and get that part over with, as it’s not the finest hour of the Boyle family. To this day, I maintain that my parents are innocent, and one day I will prove it.

  My parents are lovely people who got caught up in a nefarious crime ring. If you haven’t heard of the Bog Man Scandal, it caused quite a bit of legal rawmaish1 at the time, and it’s also the reason that my security clearance in the Special Unit will never be top level, as I have “known associates” who are convicted criminals: Mum and Da.

  My parents were not lifelong criminals. Quite the opposite. They were quiet, bookish types—curators at the National Museum of Ireland, Merrion Street Upper, Dublin 2, Ireland.

  Curator is a fancy word that means they were responsible for looking after artifacts, arranging the galleries, cataloging, and so forth. They also spent a great deal of time out in the field, collecting archaeological pieces—which, it turns out, can be very-very-super-illegal.2

  Treasure hunting in Ireland is only forbidden if the artifacts are not handed over immediately to the National Museum, which Mum and Da seemed to have “forgotten” to do at one point. Mum and Da always had a disproportionate number of metal detectors around the house, which in hindsight does throw up a bit of a red flag.

  According to the charges in Republic v. Boyle, my parents had amassed a treasure trove of Iron and Bronze Age objects that they sold to a shady art dealer named Lord Desmond Dooley on Henrietta Street in Dublin. (Lord is not a title; that’s his actual first name. Yes, creepy. Who does that? What must his parents have been like?)

  Lord Desmond Dooley is an icky man of about five feet tall, with the pinched-up face of a gargoyle who just caught a whiff of cat barf.

  Dooley was the ringleader of this stolen treasures operation, yet it was his testimony that secured my parents’ conviction. Dooley wept on the stand and accepted a plea bargain. He remains a free man to this very day.

  If you believe Dooley, which you should not, my parents sold artifacts to his underground gallery in Dublin. He in turn dealt them to international collectors at staggering prices. The loot included ancient bronze jewelry, Viking helmets, and weapons.3

  The thefts of the Viking items and jewelry were considered misdemeanors, but there was one stolen treasure in particular for which no sensible person would forgive my parents: the Bog Man.

  The Bog Man is a mummy. Yes. No kidding. My parents unearthed him on one of their treasure hunts in Offaly. Mummies are not uncommon in Ireland, as the ground is made of peat, which is a remarkable preservative. Sometimes you will find very old humans who fell into the peat and nobody noticed for a bit, until they p
opped up hundreds of years later, having missed all of their appointments. Thanks to the bogs, there may, in fact, be more mummies in Ireland than in Egypt, only people try to find the Irish ones less often, since they weren’t buried with chariots and solid-gold patio furniture.

  There are a few bog mummies on display in the National Museum. They tend to look like eyeball-less people who have been dehydrated into shiny beef jerky. But this particular Bog Man was special—as testing revealed that he had been preserved for over four thousand years.

  This would make him Ireland’s oldest known thing.

  Lord Desmond Dooley claims that my parents offered to sell him the Bog Man and a few other treasures. He met them at their home laboratory in the wee hours of the night. According to his version: My parents got cold feet and fled with the Bog Man and Dooley’s money.

  Mum and Da’s version of events is that Dooley stole the Bog Man from their lab before they could hand it over to the museum. That’s why Dooley came in the wee hours of the night—and he wasn’t alone. He and his accomplices took the Bog Man, planted the money on Mum and Da, and then reported Mum and Da to the police as they fled.

  Lord Desmond Dooley is a wealthy and unscrupulous man with powerful friends in the courts. And many people mistakenly think he is some kind of lord, even though that is just his first name—the same way that the singer Lorde’s first name is Ella.

  The Bog Man hasn’t been found since that night, but I am certain that Dooley either sold it or has it in his possession, hidden away until it’s safe to sell.

  Two years ago, on the night of my parents’ arrest, the three of us were lying on the kitchen floor playing “Are You There, Moriarty?” This is a fun parlor game where you are blindfolded on the ground, and you try to whack the other players with a rolled-up newspaper. Players are only allowed to ask, “Are you there, Moriarty?” And the other player must respond, “Yes.” Then the newspaper whacking may commence. Technically, the first person to get bonked loses, but in the excitement of the game, many whacks are often landed before a winner is declared. It’s an uncomplicated affair and just about the most fun you can have.

  My folks, Brendan and Fiona Boyle, are experts in Irish history and also at this game.

  “Are you there, Moriarty?” my mum had just asked me, trying to bounce her voice around the room like radar.

  “Yes,” I responded, as those are the rules and that’s the only thing you can say. I was tucked against the far wall. There was no way she could bonk me, even with the extra-long newspaper roll she was using. Fiona Boyle took a fierce swing that sounded like a direct hit against the stove.

  “Ow!”

  “Ha!” said Da. “Go, lad, go! You’ll never catch him! He’s a proper Boyle, quick as Mercury, like his old man!”

  This was an exaggeration. No Boyles are athletes of any kind. I once saw my da reading and humming along to Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” at the same time, and this level of exertion caused him to panic and spill soup all over the cat.

  I spun across the linoleum, taking several swats at where I expected Mum to be, but Fiona Boyle is even narrower than I am, and she can roll like a dry noodle.

  “Freeze!” said a voice.

  “Not fair!” I yelled. “You can’t say that, it’s not allowed.”

  “Freeze and put yer hands where I can see ’em,” continued the voice.

  Now it was clear that this voice was neither Mum nor Da. Turns out this voice was Monty Heneghan of the Dublin Garda, a deadly serious detective with the face of a baby that requires burping.

  Detective Heneghan bursting into our house while we were all blindfolded on the kitchen floor made his arrival extra surprising. We pulled off our blindfolds to see that there were, in fact, two officers standing in the kitchen: Detective Heneghan and another man who looked like a meerkat. How long they had been there was anybody’s guess.

  “We’ve been here almost six minutes,” said Heneghan. “Not the brightest bunch of criminals, are you? They only sent two of us, as they say you’re museum types who won’t put up a fuss.”

  “Have we done something wrong?” asked Da, befuddled, still on the floor.

  “I think you know exactly what you’ve done, Boyle. Where’s the Bog Man? The old mummified geezer?”

  In a state of pure shock, Mum and Da led the officers up the narrow stairs to their lab in the attic, where they opened a coffin-shaped crate to reveal . . . nothing. Just a bit of bog goo at the bottom of the crate.

  “We’ve been robbed!” screamed Mum.

  “But . . . how?” sputtered Da. “Who knew, except . . .”

  “Lord Desmond Dooley!” gasped Mum.

  Detective Heneghan collected a dozen of their metal detectors into evidence, along with a shopping bag full of euros—obviously planted. Detective Heneghan told Mum and Da that the garda had been “tipped off” about the Bog Man by a well-connected and reliable source. Of course, it was Lord Desmond Dooley. Later that night, Dooley himself identified them in a lineup. It’s madness. The criminal justice system is very much rigged in favor of the rich and powerful.

  Mum and Da were taken to Mountjoy to await trial. At this point, I would be remiss if I didn’t wonder aloud: If my parents had truly committed a crime, why would they be at home, playing “Are You There, Moriarty?” and rolling around on the kitchen floor like eejits? It just doesn’t add up. Unless they are eejits, which I hope is not true.

  On the night of my parents’ arrest, I was remanded to the authority of the Department of Children’s Services. When there were no other offers, they delivered me into the “care” of Dolores Mullen, my parents’ former intern. Dolores was currently living way out west in Galway (and even more currently drinking her second margarita and dancing in our kitchen to Roxy Music like a lunatic). Dolores is a delight. She has a perfectly round face and dyed pink hair and is one of those very few people who can pull off a nose ring. She wears vintage dresses and has a tattoo on her arm of the number forty-two, which is a reference to some book that she loves. Dolores devours books voraciously. I’ve never actually asked how old Dolores is, as I’ve been told it’s inappropriate to ask this of a lady, but she seems like a very immature late twentysomething. The scandal had kept Dolores out of museum work, and she was now happier, and making a far better income, as a busker4 on Shop Street.

  A few days after my parents’ conviction, I was having my first visit with them. It was a grim Christmas Day in the awfully lit visitors’ room at Mountjoy Prison that makes everyone look seasick.

  Da passed me a small gift wrapped in toilet paper, the only kind of gift wrap available to inmates. A nearby guard nodded—clearly, they had preapproved this special Christmas transaction with their son.

  “Happy Christmas, Ronan,” said Da.

  “It’s not much, just some little somethings. We made them ourselves in the shop,” said Mum.

  I unwrapped the gift and held in a tiny little scream. They had made me two small clay bookends that were busts of their own heads: one of Mum’s face, one of Da’s.

  “Can you believe we made them ourselves in the prison workshop?” said Da proudly, hugging me close. “They can watch over you even when we can’t.”

  “Say what you want, wrongful imprisonment is truly bringing out the artistes in us!” chuckled Mum.

  There was no doubt that they had made these little heads themselves. They were meant to be cute but were legitimately unsettling. My parents are curators, not artists. The heads vaguely resembled Mum and Da, but each one was grinning like the Joker, and their little eyes were drifting apart, like a chameleon hunting two different flies.

  “Wow. Brilliant” was all I could muster. They beamed—clearly, they were pretty proud of their work. “So, so . . . unlike anything I have. Or have ever seen. Unique indeed.”

  “They’re always protecting you,” said Mum with what was meant to be love but felt like a threat. Mum kissed me on the head, and I slipped the scary bookends into my pocket.


  “Be careful, son,” said Da. “And don’t trifle with Lord Desmond Dooley.”

  I nodded, because I refused to agree to this last part out loud. “I’ll be careful, yes,” I said, “but I promise you’ll never spend another Christmas in Mountjoy Prison.”

  I headed back to Galway on the 720 Coach, my parents’ tiny Joker heads rattling in my pocket. On that ride, I made the vow that I would clear their names. And—if possible—see that Lord Desmond Dooley was put behind bars, even if it meant I had to find the Bog Man myself.

  I wasn’t sure where to begin on a quest so epic, so I took the first logical step and applied for an internship with the closest available law enforcement agency: the Galway Garda. It turns out this can be done online in just a few minutes.

  Captain Fearnley read my application. He was aware of my parents’ situation and took pity on me, accepting me even though I was a bit younger than the age requirement for most interns. I’ll never know exactly what he said to me on that first day as I sat on his file cabinet and made myself throw up. Even if it was just “Idris Elba, Idris Elba”—that’s okay, too. I got the gist. Fearnley would look out for me.

  I didn’t tell Captain Fearnley that I was joining the garda as part of a plot to exonerate my parents and find a four-thousand-year-old mummy—and there is no place to enter this type of thing in the online application, so I just kept it to myself.

  Two years later, back in the present-day shared flat with hilarious Dolores, the sun was starting to set over the bay even though it was not quite four, which is one of the reasons Galway can get melancholy in the wintertime. But Dolores lit the fire and made a pizza topped with leftover wontons that we had in the fridge from Thai takeaway, because Dolores is a genius. Not only a great fiddle player, but the kind of woman unafraid to put leftover wontons on top of a pizza.