The Jack Hansard Series: Season Two

Episode 2.3

Buck chokes on his leaves, loses half his dinner to the footwell. 'Don't eat us,' he squeaks.

'She won't,' Sable declares, though I knows she flinched. 'She's just trying to scare us.'

I settles back a bit. 'Not scarin'. Warning. If ye ever see a goblin, child, run.'

Buck nods furiously and hugs Rocky close for comfort. I gets the sense that Sable lowers her hackles a bit, too. 'What are you doing with this guy?' She jerks her head at Hansard. 'You're a weird pair.'

'There's plenty weirder out there, kid,' Hansard says around a mouthful of food.

'We're business partners,' I explains. 'We sells strange an' unusual merchandise, the like o' which would awe an' befuddle ye.' I lean forward and shield me mouth with a hand so's Hansard won't hear. 'But between you an' me, most've it's garbage potions 'n' lucky charms that've gone off.'

Buck hasn't got the joke, but Sable lifts an eyebrow. I turns round proper and makes a seat for meself in the middle, so's I can look at 'em square on. 'Anyway, that's the what. As fer the why, well. Some of my kin disappeared from home – kidnapped, so's we think. Hansard here is meant t'be helpin' me trace 'em, when he ain't too busy countin' money.'

'We've made progress!' he insists.

'Aye, aye. It's just painful slow, gwas.'

Buck whispers from his corner. 'Do you know who kidnapped them?'

I'm about t'say when I note he's clutching his carrier bag again. Real tight, as though he's afraid o' losin' it. Something like coarse fur pokes out the top – but he snatches it away as soon as I leans in to look.

'You can't have it,' he says, almost fierce.

'Just lookin', that's all,' I assures. 'What're you carrying that's so precious to ye?'

Sable's slyly pushing her own bag out o' my reach with her foot, like she think I don't notice. There's dark brown fur in that one, shiny and soft.

I moves a bit too quick – startles 'em both – but all I'm doing is reaching back for my lantern. I holds it out to them, and her blue light falls soft on their little faces.

'That's pretty,' Buck says uncertainly.

'This is me bluecap.' I undoes the catch and let her out. 'It be a guardian spirit. Mine own Mam, is this.'

I hears Hansard chuckle and see Buck's reaction is more fearful than I intended.

'It's a ghost?' he stammers.

This be a hard one. Some ideas don't translate well. 'Not like ye might understand such. This were her essence, that what guides. We coblyn come from the earth and return to it, but leave behind a spark o' what we were. We looks to the past t'guide us, and our spirit selves remain to guard the future.'

Buck's concentrating hard trying to wrap his head round it. I smile and cradle the bluecap in my hands, then usher it in his direction. She drifts against his cheek, an' by his wide eyes I know he feels the echo of a mother's touch.

'Mam used t'tell me all sorts o' stories,' I continue. 'Ancient legends from the old country. An' then I'd tell them to the kiddies in the mine. That's where I lived, see. In a deep coal mine where coblynau and humans worked together.'

'That sounds horrid,' Sable butts in.

'Fer some, lass. Especially the kiddies. This were back when the big 'uns still sent their children down, see. Kids younger even than you, Buck. Coblyn children, we's born fer it. We got the eyes and the skin for the dark. But not a wee human dwtty. Oftentimes they were put to work as trappers. That's openin' an' closin' the trapdoors in the tunnels. Ye had to sit still, though, as a trapper. Sometimes for hours and hours. An' they had to stay awake. Terrible things befell them that slept. Them trapdoors was heavy and could crush the bones of a dwtty – a little 'un, that is. So's they had to keep awake, this little plentyn all alone, weepin' in the dark as their candle sputters out. So I'd come by an' keep them company, an' I'd tell the old stories and sing the old songs to 'em.'