The Other Crowd. Alex Archer

assignment was so lacking in credibility. But she’d never let that stop her before, or make her look bad. “I’m here to investigate the disappearances.”

      “That’d be the fair folk,” Slater offered. “Good luck with that.”

      He turned and stomped off, delivering her a smirking sneer over his shoulder.

      “Good luck with that,” she mocked at his back. “This is hopeless, Eric. No one will take me seriously if they think I’m tracking faeries.”

      “You won’t be saying that when we have them on film. I can feel the eerie mystical presence in the air.” He scanned his camera around to her face.

      “Can you?” She sighed. “Good for you, Eric. The land is steeped in the mystical. I guess I need to relax and let it take hold of me, too.”

      “Want to do the introduction now?”

      “Save it. I want to walk the area with Wesley and see what’s what.”

      “I’ll be right behind you.”

      “No, you are not my shadow—at least, not right now. You can film the countryside and get some pretty shots of the green rolling hills. The sunset is really enhancing the vivid greens and the sky as amazing. That’ll look great on film. Then skip down to the river and scan for mermaids if the mood takes you. But I don’t need you until I need you. Got that?”

      He tilted his head aside from the viewfinder to eye her. “You see? There is an aggressive mood hanging over us all.”

      She opened her mouth to protest, but thought better of it. Annja stalked off, wondering if there was something to what Eric had said. When normal people became aware of danger such as a gun-wielding dig director, they went on guard without realizing it. It was simply an innate reaction to the feeling of uncertainty. Who wanted to work a dig with that kind of menace in the air?

      No matter. She shouldn’t allow the volatile mood to creep into her psyche so easily, and would not.

      A fine mist veiled the camp, dulling the air, but not Annja’s determined attitude. Surely, if faeries did exist, they would be here in bonny Éire. The green was so intense it hurt her eyes. Rolling soft grass, untouched by dig tools or rut-forming tires, undulated up a distant hill and was topped by a scatter of scraggly pine trees.

      Breathing deeply, she concentrated on centering herself. She had let anxiety get the better of her. A deep inhale scented salty and fresh, mixed with earth and gasoline fumes.

      “Petrol,” she muttered, correcting her language for the country.

      “This way.” Daniel appeared, muddy fedora tilted to shadow his eyes. “I’ll show you about the camp. You’ve already met both dig directors.”

      “Yes, and Wesley offered to show me around.”

      “He’s nursing his wounds and letting the females fuss over him. This won’t take long. You’ve seen most of the layout already.”

      His footsteps were fun to follow. Toes pointed forty-five degrees outward, Annja tried to fit her steps into his prints in the drying mud but her balance wavered from the task.

      The sight of a little old lady in her peripheral view intrigued her. One was never too old to work a dig as long as they were eager. But Annja suspected perhaps the woman was a local who brought food to the crews, which was always a blessing when that happened.

      She caught up to Daniel’s long strides. “Who is that?”

      “Ah? Me mum. She visits digs on occasion. We get a lot in the area. Wanders the countryside and riverbank endlessly. Always looking for geegaws and collectibles, she is.”

      “Collectibles? But whatever is dug up on-site is an artifact. She doesn’t try to buy things from the dig, does she?”

      “Buy? Oh, no. You’d be amazed what an apple pie and a string of fresh blood sausage can get you.”

      “You’re kidding me.”

      “It’s how I learned to barter, watching me mum. She’s an avid collector. Her cottage is filled overflowing with all sorts of things. You’ll have to pay her a visit while you’re here.”

      “I think I’d like that.” The idea of the old woman bartering for things found on digs—items that should normally belong to the landowner or government—stirred Annja’s curiosity. And her sense for protecting history.

      “She’d be pleased if you would stop in for supper one night. I’ll arrange it, then.”

      “So you have an interest in archaeology, Daniel?”

      “Nope.”

      “But you know the dig directors?”

      “Yep.”

      “What about this Neville guy?”

      “Frank Neville. He’s an…acquaintance. I met him a few years ago and traded him a bottle of Lafite.”

      Eric had referred to wine as being Daniel’s passion.

      Bartering was a way of life for some people. They lived off the land, didn’t consume anything that could not be recycled and basically existed off the electronic grid. She suspected Daniel was the sort, and perhaps got by on very little, save for what he obviously bartered for.

      “I know everyone in the area and most of West Cork, too, it seems,” he said. “Hear they believe they found some kind of faerie spear on this particular dig.”

      “Allegedly. The spear of Lugh. It’s connected to the Tuatha Dé Danaan.”

      “The tribe of the goddess Danu. I know the story. Don’t know much about the spear.”

      “One of four magical gifts brought by the Danaan from four island cities of Tír na nÓg. It’s supposed to never miss its target and always return to the hand that threw it.”

      He nodded, and shrugged. “Me mum’s probably already got it, then.”

      WHILE THREE WOMEN and one man went about cleaning up their loose dirt and packing away their tools for the night, Wesley was still working when Annja returned to the dig square.

      He waved her over and showed her the strata trench. Dug down about two feet, this trench was preserved to study the stratigraphy and gauge the year for each level of earth dug. Photographic records were usually kept nowadays, but Wesley explained he’d given Theresa a drawing frame and set her to work recording the north corner of the dig where a few pot fragments had been partially uncovered.

      “Everyone should learn how to do it the old-fashioned way,” he said.

      Annja sensed he enjoyed teaching and the satisfying tedium of the old-fashioned way. She would never go against a director’s methods, and didn’t mind the old-fashioned way so much herself.

      He handed her a trowel, and Annja squatted next to him.

      In this quadrant, the crew had dug down to about the mid-nineteenth century, according to a small matchstick tin they’d found two days earlier. Wesley suspected they’d tapped into a farmhouse that may have held victims of the potato famine. He planned to bring in soil samples to a lab in Cork for verification.

      “I suspect we’ll find the pathogen that destroyed the crops,” he commented. “As I told you, we haven’t found any bones yet. Perhaps this farmstead was lucky and the family found their way to Liverpool or even America.”

      Neither of which option would have been preferred, Annja mused. The Irish immigrants arriving in America had been treated as second-class citizens, if they made the trip successfully. The emigrants crossing the ocean to find prosperity in America were usually struck down with disease and fever during the long journey on the so-called coffin ships. And if they did set foot in New York, they were discriminated against, cheated and treated cruelly.

      In England they’d received no better