Deep Betrayal Page 0,88
the door and a string of bells announced us to the receptionist. Calder walked quickly into the office and put both hands on her counter, leaning toward her with a wide smile.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.
“No,” Calder said. “We were hoping to speak to the dentist.”
“Oh, well, you’d have to have an appointment to do that.”
“It’s important,” Calder said, and I felt the temperature tick up a degree or two.
The receptionist’s eyes widened and her cheeks flushed scarlet. “Well, I suppose I could go see.…”
A man in a white lab coat came into the lobby through another door. His gray hair stood off his head like a puffy dandelion gone to seed. He pushed the last third of a sandwich into his mouth and picked up a magazine from the coffee table.
“Dr. Coyote?” I asked.
“Hmmm? I’m sorry.” His words came out garbled. “I was just finishing my lunch. I didn’t know I had another appointment so soon. Let me clean up and we can get started.”
“I’m not here about my teeth,” I said.
“Well, honey, I’m sorry, that’s all we do here,” he said, and there was a twinkle in his eye. “I can’t help you with much else.”
“Actually … we thought maybe we could talk to you about Maighdean Mara?” Calder asked. He leaned in and focused his eyes on the doctor’s.
Dr. Coyote’s caterpillar-like eyebrows shot up; then he chuckled and diverted his eyes. He wiped his hands on his wide-wale corduroys and glanced at his receptionist. “Why don’t you kids come on back. We can meet in private.” Calder and I exchanged looks as the dentist led us to a small office decorated in pastel dentist chic. Two chairs sat opposite the desk, and Calder and I fell into them.
Always blunt, Calder cut to the chase. “We’re told you know something about her, the legend, I mean.”
“Some might call me a bit of an expert,” said Dr. Coyote. “I come from a long line of devotees.”
His gaze settled on my pendant. “Who sent you?”
“My aunt suggested you might know where to find her.”
Dr. Coyote looked me hard in the eyes, then got up and went to a bookcase behind his desk. Most of the books had the same ADA label on the spine, but up high, in the top right corner, were some smaller, older books, with cracked and broken bindings.
“You’ll like this,” he said, pulling one down and opening it up to a page marked with a red satin ribbon. “It’s a children’s book. Easily overlooked, but still useful for the basics, and even more if you read a little deeper.” He opened the book and turned it around so we could see the pictures: charcoal drawings of a beautifully fearsome creature taming a storm.
“See here, that’s Maighdean Mara,” said Dr. Coyote, pointing as if we could have missed her. “Her mother was Talamh, ‘The Earth,’ and her father was Gailleann, ‘The Tempest.’
“She also had a brother named Dóiteán, which means ‘blaze.’ They were fire and water, and they hated each other. One day they got in a terrible fight and Maighdean Mara ran far away. She came west and found the cave behind Copper Falls.”
Calder took my hand, fumbling with my fingers.
“Back in the day, my grandfather always told me that Maighdean Mara was the ancestor of … the others.”
“The others?” I asked.
“The others. Those creatures who are part woman, part animal.” He discreetly stole another glance at my pendant and caught my eye for just a second before looking away. “Excuse me, but shouldn’t you know all this already?”
“I heard these legends go back to the Great Flood,” I said, ignoring his question. “As in Noah’s ark.”
“What I’ve told you is ancient legend. But she has been seen as recently as the late eighteen hundreds. After World War I, there was even a paper written, analyzing the scientific evidence and suggesting Maighdean Mara was still living, deep within the lake.” Dr. Coyote smiled and pulled another book off the shelf. “It’s all in here. You read it.”
“Some boys from Cornucopia suggested she was a monster,” I said.
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no. She’s a great benefactor.”
“But that could change, right?” I asked. “If people stopped paying attention to her, she could, like, retaliate?”
My question seemed to make Dr. Coyote uncomfortable. He frowned at his desk and closed the book without answering.
“Dr. Coyote,” Calder said, “if someone were to look for her, where would you recommend he go?”
Dr. Coyote flipped open the second book to