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FROM THE JOURNALS OF RICHARD B. BERNSTEIN, THE ACADEMIC DETECTIVE
The woman stood on an outcropping of rock midway down the gully. The two girls sheepishly hung their heads.
"Awww, Joyleaf..." they began-
"Not another word. YOU-" she said, indicating Zero,"-let ‘em go. NOW."
Wulfgar spoke up, as Zero complied-"Do no fear, Lady-"
She covered him with a slight shift of the rifle's barrel.
"I'M not the one who has reason to be afraid, Mister. Just what are you folks doing out here?"
I sensed the air to be charged with potential for violence, and was about to speak, when Wulfgar started...
"Look, Miss-ah-"
"Joyleaf", she responded.
"-Miss Joyleaf we're-here at the behest o' yuir government(he said quickly); this is Professor Bernstein (indicating myself), expert in Uncanny Phenomena, head of a joint task force on Unconventional Sightings. I'm Agent Wulfgar010, Liason with Scottish Intelligence, Division Six, and these are oour associates." He proffered his ScotIntel I.D. . Joyleaf took it cautiously, and examined it minutely-
"Hmph. Well, I guess that I've seen everything. So, you're here about the bears?"
Wulfgar and I looked at one another, he with this 'C'mon, Richard, yuir turn' expression on his face, I with a 'WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GETTING US INTO?!?' look.
"Yes, yes, the-uh-'bears'. So, you know about the situation...?" I offered.
"Do I KNOW about them?!? The goddamned sonsawhores have wrecked a third of my commercial herb garden, and eaten HALF of my medicinal plants."
"Really? How fascinating-"
"Are you really a Secret Agent?" the young girl in buckskin queried Zero, eyeing him intently.
"Yes, yes I am." he responded, showing her and her twin sister his (now-invalid but official-appearing) I.D.
"Cool! It's got a hologram of Sean Connery's face on it!"
Wulfgar turned back to Joyleaf; "So, Miss Joyleaf-"
"Just Joyleaf."
"Aye, Joyleaf, then, what ha'e ye tae tell us aboot th' 'bears', and any-other-strange goin's on in these parts?"
Throwing_Muses spoke up:"The Dark Ones have come, and they sicken the forest; their blight has damaged the ecosphere with unclean...things. The Black Goat's Young lurk in the leprous shadows."
"Er, thanks, laddie", said Wulfgar, his inflection telling me "looney".
"My brother's actually onto something, there", Joyleaf countered a bit testily, "Ever since that SecureMaxx company set up shop just across the border, queer things have been going on. One of the 'bears' went after the girls near the house and I had to shoot it. Damndest thing, it had scales and plates of bone on its belly, and horns on its skull. That and the three-eyed fish, birds with teeth and wing-claws showing up, and six-legged raccoons gettin' in the garbage-"
"And don't forget Eamon", piped up Alpan.
"Eamon?", Ms. Phan asked, a peculiar tone in her voice, "Who'd that be?"
Joyleaf shrugged and tossed her gorgeous blonde hair-"He's kind of an 'imaginary playmate' that the girls have."
"Is NOT!!!", the offended parties cried in unison, "Eamon's REAL!"
"Aren't they a bit old for 'imaginary friends'? I noted to Joyleaf, just a shade above a whisper.
"I'd have thought so-" she started, but Hazel-Rah stomped up to her.
"Eamon is SO real! He just...vanishes...when you come around, is all...REALLY..."
"Yeah", continued Alpan, "he says that The Boss doesn't like it when he talks to 'normals', but that the Community isn't what he thought that it was going to be."
At the phrase "the Community", I noted that Zero stiffened perceptibly.
"The Community?", I asked blandly. Joyleaf shot a sharp glance my way as if to warn me off from feeding the psychoses of impressionable young minds.
"Aye, a veritable Community of EVIL, a sink of dark impulses, and breeders of monsters!!!", shouted Throwing_Muses.
"Professor, a word with you-ALONE", Ms. Phan spoke as she grabbed my elbow, "I'm sure that Wulfgar can take the young lady's statement." She smiled sweetly at Wulfgar-a smile that said 'Do it, you git!' as she steered me away...
I felt Wulfgar's glare on our backs like a palpable thing. As we passed Branagh, he was explaining to the energetic young girls that he'd done SWING KIDS "For the money, I'm afraid...".
Once out of earshot of the others, Phim Phan spoke: "Richard, that sounds like Eamon J. Doyle."
"Eamon who? Oh, wait, that kid who looks like a cross between a leprechaun and a Keebler Elf-the little freak of nature that worked for you once, right?"
"He was a valued operative, Professor", she said, indicating her displeasure mildly, "we lost track of him somehow when he began attending meetings of one of the support/lobby groups for the Community of The Created. He just dropped out of sight."
"Not too hard to do for someone who can teleport", I noted.
"This is the first lead that we've gotten on his whereabouts since his disappearance-it may tie into the capturing of Wulfgar's sibs."
"I don't know if I truly care anymore; without Princess-"
"THAT is enough of THAT, Professor; Wulfgar said it well, but it bears repeating-she and Ivan knew the score, but she was willing to take the risk. She may have realized that there was more at stake than simply reuniting Wulfgar with his sibs. You owe her memory more than that."
I began to feel that she was right. 'What the hell', I thought as we rejoined the rest of the group, 'we're here now-best to see it through.'
Wulfgar had apparently finished "taking Joyleaf's statement" and had pulled out his ABC Map of Maine. Lady_Eboshi meditated under a maple tree, and Zero and Branagh were amusing the twins with sleight-of-hand tricks.
"So, we're ...HERE", Wulfgar indicated on the map. Joyleaf nodded, and helpfully stabbed a point on the Canadian side of the border "Here" she said, "is where SecureMaxx is..."
"Well, then, we'd best be about it-"
Throwing_Muses took time out from his fitful brooding to declare that "The Jackals of Metal shall pick clean the bones of the unwary!!!"
"Uh-thankee, Laddie, we'll keep tha' in mind..."
We then took our leave of the eccentric Joyleaf clan and began to make our way cautiously through the North Maine Woods...
(To Be Continued)
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