The Adventure of Seamus Tripp & the Changelings

Gordon Tripp paused in his journaling and looked up. He was tucked beneath the salon’s grand staircase at the desk he used for his daily writing. He was nearly thirteen years old and aspired to be a great writer.

Today’s particular exercise was giving him trouble, not on account of the exercise itself – “observe today’s weather and create a comparison to an article of clothing” – but because of all of the other goings-on in the shop’s front room.

Seamus Tripp, Gordon’s uncle as well as the co-owner and namesake of Tripp’s Imports & Antiquities, stood behind the long wooden bar that served as the shop’s front counter arguing with his business partner, the accountant Myron Fish. Their voices rose as they pointed and counter-pointed, a ruckus Gordon was certain would distract even the most seasoned of writers.

“I’m certain it will be a profitable, trip,” Seamus was saying. “So certain, in fact, that you will be able to accomplish it completely in solo operandi.”

This was the sort of conversational flourish typical of Seamus, and while it sounded quite fancy, Gordon knew it was actually rather meaningless. He opened his mouth to say as much but Myron spoke first.

“I appreciate your vote of confidence and your questionable classical grammar,” he said. “But this account requires your personal touch. Besides, he’s your friend. You must make introductions.”

“Newt is not my friend. He’s at best an acquaintance.”

“But your acquaintance, not mine.”

“He was a toadstool when I knew him and I little doubt he’s changed. I need no more introduce you to him as to a toadstool.”

“Come now. He is a peer. One does not attain the title Lord without some merit.”

“The merit of an equally titled father.”

“I’m sure there’s more to him than all that.”

This gave Seamus pause. “Perhaps there is,” he said finally. “Newt did always enjoy observing frogs and lilypads and mushrooms.”

“See there! A man of varied interests…”

“So take the children along.”

“The children?” said Myron incredulously. The lip below his pencil-thin mustache quivered. “For what?”

“Gordon enjoys nature inasmuch as it provides him inspiration for creating his ‘word pictures.’ He and old Lord Nigel should become fast friends whilst Nigel searches for lizards and the boy searches for synonyms.”

“Reptiles…” Gordon started to say, thinking Seamus meant synonyms for “lizards” but Myron cut him off again.

“And Elie?” Elie Doolittle was the granddaughter of the shop’s housekeeper, Mrs. Doolittle.

“And Elaine enjoys creating more literal pictures, interested as she is in art. And I believe Nigel the Newt has a daughter. Perhaps she and Elaine will strike up a rapport.”

Gordon cringed at this suggestion. While he loved the idea of a trip to Cornwall, where the Lord Newt lived, he did not savor the idea of taking it with just Myron and Elie. Such a trip would be more trying on his nerves than it was worth.

Elie was seated on the other side of the parlor from Gordon, her long red hair tied back as she sketched at her easel. She was looking out at Charter Street, the bustling thoroughfare outside the shop, but she also took note of Seamus’s suggestion and looked up.

“Oh, please, please take me with!” she said to Myron. She was fourteen years old and visiting Boston from Abigail Adams Academy, her preparatory school in Washington, D.C., because of some disciplinary episode Gordon knew involved mice and the headmistress's office. “We just studied the Elizabethan period and I could contribute much to our conversations with Lord Newt and his daughter!”

“He goes by Lord Uhelbar, now,” said Seamus, “but otherwise my take is that Cornwall has not advanced much past the reign of Queen Elizabeth.” He smirked, the sure sign that he had made a joke which all listening should enjoy.

No one responded.

“Because…” he began to explain but apparently thought better of it, turning now to look at Gordon. “Gort, don’t look so damnably forlorn. You’ll get to go, too.”

Gordon looked down at his journal. His best writing exercise result of the day had read “the chill of the spring air covered him like a cold, wet wool coat.” Now he imagined that cold wetness as a metaphor for the trip to Cornwall. He needed to think of a way to get Seamus to come with, too.

“In addition to the Elizabethan period,” continued Elie, still making the case for Myron to accept Seamus’s suggestion, “we raised tadpoles last semester and watched them morph into frogs. If Lord Newt is interested in them I could surely discuss those as well.”

“And paint them, too, no doubt,” Seamus said helpfully.

Myron cocked an eyebrow. “Fine. The children can come.”

Elie clapped and Gordon stifled a groan, and just then the shop’s front doorbell chimed. A great gust of cold, damp air blew in, accompanied by the shop’s best customer, Mrs. Dahlia Gristmill.

******

Seamus Tripp was grateful for Mrs. Gristmill’s sudden arrival. It had stopped, or at least paused, the interminable conversation with Myron vis-à-vis the business trip to Cornwall to visit old Nigel the Newt, now called Lord Uhelbar.

Back in their school days Nigel had been more interested in bugs and frogs than pranks, and had afforded to all things natural a reverence Seamus thought ought to be reserved to the things that transcended nature. Or at least the things that allowed people to transcend it. Newt, for his part, had always said that there was nothing more to the world than what met the eye, and they had left it at that.

Now, nearly twenty years later, Newt had come into a titled estate in a sleepy village on the edge of Britannia. He had turned his powers of naturalistic observation to his new trappings, exploring his new grounds leaf by leaf and lizard by lizard.

During that exploration of the property, according to an overly verbose telegram, he had come upon a great swath of naturally occurring amanita muscaria. Fly agaric was the quintessential “toadstool”, known dismissively as “pixie caps” to yokels unaware of its true powers. It was a mushroom of such potency, used much in ritual magicks and in many hoodoo concoctions, that Seamus knew it would be a sure winner with the aristocratic practitioners of his adopted city, Boston, and the loyal customers of his shop.

But in arranging for Myron’s trip, Seamus had nearly been ensnared as well. Certainly the shop would benefit financially from Newt’s toadstools, but Seamus wanted no part in the trip itself: the dreary ennui of a week in Cornwall with Lord Nigel the Newt! Best to leave that to the accountant and the children.

So it was with some relief that Seamus turned to welcome Mrs. Gristmill, the truest embodiment of an aristocratic practitioner and loyal customer. In the stupor brought upon by Mrs. Doolittle's stupendous biscuit breakfast, Seamus had gotten quite tied up in the discussion with Myron. Gristmill, despite herself, was a welcome distraction.

“Hello,” she said to all gathered, as if she owned the place.

“Welcome, dearest madam,” said Seamus, taking her hand with a flourish.

“I was passing by and thought I’d stop for a moment. Treat myself of any new inventory since my last visit.” She peeked over Seamus’s shoulder at a stack of crates piled at the entrance to the shop’s bookshelves.

“Ah, those,” said Seamus, stepping to the side to usher her toward them. “Arrived yesterday. We’d tasked my nephew with their unloading but it appears he’s better things to do.” Seamus shot Gordon a meaningful glance but the boy was either too engrossed in his journal, or too shy in the presence of Mrs. Gristmill, or both, to acknowledge.

“They look interesting. And four crates? Such exotic stamps. Have they come from afar?”

“Yes, each with a unique item unknown to our Western senses.” Seamus extracted a hand-carven mask from the topmost crate. It was a fine piece, delicately depicting a warrior upon dark Totara bark.

“Disgraceful, with his tongue extruding such as it is.”

“Madame Gristmill,” said Seamus, trying not to lecture the hapless woman, “these are Maori Ta-moko masks, crafted in New Zealand to ward off evil spirits…” But she had moved on, pushing the lid off the second crate and peering in at a tangle of leather tack and brass amulets.

“These are divine. Surely they would be the envy of my friends, particularly la Marchessa. Certainly she has nothing like these.”

“I’ve no doubt.”

“What are they?”

“Horse brass, madam, enchanted by gypsies and harnessed to the finest lordly steeds of the Transcaucasian noblesse.”

“Intriguing. Enchanted for what?”

“It’s not what they’re enchanted for, madam, that intrigues. It’s what they’re enchanted against.”

“Fine. Enchanted against what?” she said.

“Against the evil eye. Quite a typical ward against one's enemies in that culture.”

Mrs. Gristmill sniffed, apparently a bit offended. “Well, I’m certain I’ve no use for such a trinket.”

“Certainly not, madam.”

She dropped the bridle and moved to the next crate, immediately picking up a large, stuffed bird. “What a heroic specimen,” she said, holding it before her like a communion chalice. “I can already imagine how noble this would be in Mortimer’s study.”

“Noble, indeed.”

“You don’t like it?”

“Forgive my presumption, but we ordinarily do not traffic in these sorts of the gauche displays.”

“Gauche?”

“The gentle, teeming animals, madam, now stuffed and displayed like some mortis reanimus. Certainly you prefer things of a higher sensibility?”

“I certainly do. How, then, did you happen upon this one?” She still held it at shoulder height, staring into the bird’s opaque black eyes.

“As payment from a client in lieu of cash. You see, his business, a thriving mercantile exchange in Cape Town, burned to the ground shortly after he killed the very bird you’re holding.”

“It did?”

“Yes, madam. Killing an albatross brings with it a fearsome curse.”

Mrs. Gristmill nearly dropped the bird back into its crate. “There’s more to these items than meets the eye,” she said as she moved to the fourth, where she extracted a set of four pronged wands laid on a chamois skin. “What delicate kraftwerk!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, you’ve a fine eye for quality,” said Seamus, smiling at her exotic pronunciation. The woman always surprised him with her fits of worldliness. “These are Fijan cannibal forks, local mores dictate…”

But before he could even finish the thought Mrs. Gristmill gasped and quickly deposited the forks back in their crate. She gathered up her skirts and hurried to the door. So much for worldliness. “I’ll take three of those wonderful masks from the first crate,” she said over her shoulder as she left the shop. “Ship directly to the manor.”

And, with a gust of cold, spring air, she was gone. Seamus looked about, to see how the others had fared during the visit. Elie remained at her easel, sketching. Mrs. Doolittle was bustling about with a mid morning tea service.

Gordon and Myron stood behind the bar, talking in conspiratorial tones. Seamus, busy selling merchandise in order to finance their gossip, had not seen Gordon cross the room, yet here the two were, speaking in a most suspicious manner.

“Gordon has clarified something about the trip to visit Lord Uhelbar,” said Myron, and Seamus knew the conclusion that followed would not be to his liking, “and he’s indicated quite persuasively that it would be irresponsible of us to travel to Cornwall with two children and but one adult.”

“How's that?” said Seamus.

“Lest one of us end up trapped in some wardrobe,” said Gordon, his imagination already run away with him, “in some unused corner of that soggy old manor, or some place worse.”

“So I believe the case is settled,” said Myron. “You must accompany us. You can formally introduce me to the lord of the manor, and then – whilst I arrange for the purchase and transport of the pixie caps – you and the children can stay busy exploring the grounds and the village. I’m sure you will make do.”

Seamus reflected on that thought whilst they made final preparations for the trip to Cornwall. Certainly this trip had all the markings of a week of tedium. But, had similar trips not started the same way and nonetheless ended with great exploits? The trip to Norway, for example, which initially portended naught but gathering bushels of cloudberries. And the trip to Arizuma for those blasted sage smudge sticks. Or even the trip to Australia, with naught but an opal mine to attract them.

Truly, he concluded as he watched Gordon haul his trunk out to their waiting transom, these trips did not always end the way they appeared they would.