In my book, "Eagle Quest," the kids are sitting around a campfire, the looming darkness and flickering of the fire made them all a bit edgy. So, of course, they proceeded to tell ghost stories. Fiona is telling this tale and her friends, Hap and Billy, are the audience.* * *
“This is the story of Bridget who was
hired to be the nanny for two kids whose parents died in a horrible
accident. Now, this all happened in Ireland way back, so don’t go
so why this or why that. It’s just how the story happened, okay?”
The boys nodded solemnly. Fiona usually
told pretty good stories, so Billy and Hap were willing to listen
without making too much fun.
“Anyway, if you’ll all be quiet,
I’ll start.”
The boys settled themselves
comfortably. Hap and Billy knew Fiona. This was not going to
be a short story.
Fiona cleared her throat and began to
tell the tale using her best Irish brogue.
“The uncle hired Bridget to act as a
nanny for two children whose parents had died. She was supposed to
care for them until he could come to take them.
“The boy had blond hair and blue eyes
and the girl had dark hair and brown eyes. They had names that were
almost alike. The girl was Frances and the boy Francis.
“The children told Bridget there was
one thing they must do every day. They needed to go to the graves of
their parents which were a little way away from the house.
“Bridget thought it was fine the
children wanted to visit the graves of their dead parents, so she
didn’t object. She watched them from a window in the second floor.
She saw them stand by the graves and thought they might be praying or
even singing a song.
“One day, she told the children the
weather was getting too bad and she didn’t want them to go to the
graves. The children begged and cried, but Bridget didn’t want them
to get sick, so she was strict about it.
“When she went to the children’s
room the next day to get them up, the boy who was blond had dark hair
and the girl who used to be dark was now blonde.”
Billy interrupted at this point. “Was
that magic or what?”
“Can you just sit back and let me
tell the story?”
“Sure. Sorry. I won’t say another
word.”
Fiona continued, “It startled
Bridget, but the children insisted they had always been this way and
that Bridget was mistaken to think it was the other way around.
“Still, she decided they were lying
and, although she couldn’t figure out why, she took them to the
village priest. ‘Father, these children have changed. Look at
them!’
“The Priest looked at the children
and saw the boy was light and the girl was dark. He said, ‘What
should I be seeing, Bridget?’
“Bridget saw the children had changed
back to the way they were before. She was worried she was going crazy
to make such a mistake.
“They all returned home and Bridget
kept the children in her room so she could make sure they didn’t go
to the grave. She watched the grave through the second story window.
“She saw a green glow come up from
the grave and then the children appeared standing next to it. She
turned around and saw the children still in the room asleep. She
looked back and the children were gone again and the green glow had
faded. But, the next morning, the children had changed again. The boy
was dark and the girl was blonde.
“This happened again the next night
and Bridget thought she must be going mad. She decided she’d just
ignore it and pretend it was a trick of the moonlight on vapors
rising out of the ground. Just some innocent thing. As for her seeing
the children at the grave when they were in the room, she thought the
shadows from the limbs of the tree next to the grave were to blame.
“The next day, she heard the clock
chime. Since it chimed every fifteen minutes, hearing it wasn’t
unusual, but every little noise made her more afraid.
“Then, she left the children in the
room and went down into the hallway where the big grandfather clock
stood. It was exactly eight o’clock on the morning of November
21st. The pendulum on the clock had stopped. Bridget knew
that was the exact date and time the children’s parents died one
year before.
“She slowly climbed the stairs again
and went back into the children’s room. The boy and girl were gone.
She looked out the window toward the graves and saw the children
standing there. She knew they couldn’t have gone by her when she
was in the hallway.
“She felt a chill come into the air.
Walking out into the hallway again, she saw a greenish light coming
from under the door of the parents’ bedroom, a room that hadn’t
been opened since the day they died.
“This was all too much for Bridget
and she ran screaming from the house. She ran down the lane to the
village. She ran right to the church.
“Gasping for breath, she found the
Father in his office and opened her mouth to speak. But nothing came
out. She couldn’t make a sound. The priest saw that she was
terrified. Her skin was white as chalk and her mouth gaped open as
she tried to speak.
“The priest arranged for someone to
go watch the children. He brought Bridget to the doctor, but the
doctor said she had a disease of the mind, not the body and he
couldn’t help her.
“The woman the priest sent to watch
the children came back and said they were not at the house. The
villagers arranged for search parties, but they couldn’t find them
anywhere. The rumors started that Bridget murdered the children and
buried them somewhere, but no grave was ever found.
“The village got together and sent
Bridget to the Insane Asylum, where she lived out her days unable to
speak. All she could do is scream whenever she heard the sound of a
chiming clock.”
Fiona stopped and looked around the
campfire. “That’s the end of the story,” she said, so the boys
would know she was finished.
“Wow. That is a pretty good story,
Fiona. It’s one of those old Irish stories, right?”
“Yes, it’s an old Irish tale, but
every word is absolutely true.”
The boys laughed, but were a little
uneasy when they looked at the looming black trees surrounding them.
EAGLE QUEST - Ebook, Print, and Audio
Fiona, Hap, Billy, and Mitch make an odd set of friends, as different from the usual junior high school crowd as they are from each other.
Mitch, the oldest of the four, is a half-breed Native American, adopted by white parents. Troubled that he doesn't know his tribe, he avidly studies Native American history and lore. Learning the nearby Bear Valley Wildlife Refuge is a bald eagle nesting site, he wants to add an eagle feather to his medicine bag and explore the refuge as a site for his Vision Quest, a Native American rite of passage. He and his three friends get far more than an overnight campout as they encounter a black bear, a retired forest ranger living in the refuge, and a pair of eagle poachers. Bringing the poachers to justice, they test their courage and gain confidence in themselves and each other.
