~~~
Inside the CCV Bartholomew was bringing up maps on the front LCD screens. He had marked a location north east of Winnipeg with a glowing green dot. Then he selected a soft tool from the digital sidebars he had swiped in for the map and drawn a line through some streets in Winnipeg and up Route 59, then making a little jog towards the blue dot on the outskirts of East Selkirk. It was all very near to a gigantic looking lake that ran off the edge of the map and was labeled Lake Winnipeg.
“I think for visiting Hattie we’d be fine to leave the truck uncloaked and just use route 59. Not sense in mucking about in the fields leaving tracks when we don’t have to, right?”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” Peter said. As he thought about it, that did make sense. He’d been trained that there are few undesirable contacts that might be inclined to try to follow the IPMA vehicle in order to expose their existence, or at least their mission. It would be good to drive through plowed city streets for a ways just to lose anyone that might have picked up on their trail.
Within about ten minutes, Peter was pulling up to a small farmhouse in the middle of a snow covered field on a gravely road. The agent directed the other two to exit with him, and as they opened the doors and climbed down to the ground, a middle-aged woman with red hair and lines on her face like she’d seen a long time of braving cold winds and hot summer suns was standing with the screen door propped open before her on the porch. Though her hair was red, her skin was rather dark and pretty. She was scowling but she was a friendly enough looking person to Josh’s eye and her anticipation made him feel warm, like he’d just arrived at Grandma’s house.
“Salut, Peter,” the woman said as they approached and stuck out her hand.
The agent smiled at her and grasped her hand, replying, “Comment allez-vous?”
“Oh, tut, Peter,” she answered with a slight accent. “Not so formal. We are friends now, are we not?”
“Of course,” the agent replied. He introduced Agent Bartholomew and Joshua quickly as she brought them inside from the cold.
“Your agents are so young now, Peter.”
Peter laughed a little, respectfully, and then used a little more serious tone as he explained. “Actually, Josh has recently had similar experiences as Hattie has had when we first contacted her. You might say, he’s joined us as our only available expert on the matter. Well…until we arrived here anyway. He saw them in Michigan and we’ve been following a growing trail ever since.”
She swept her hand at the table in the kitchen as a gesture to be seated, and then stuck her head through an archway and called up the stairs, “Hattie? They’re here. You’d better come down quickly.”
Turning back to the group of three at the table Hattie’s mother added, “I suppose you’re here to take her with you then, aren’t you?”
The two agents looked at each other briefly. Josh turned his head from one to the other and wondered if that’s what they were really here for, to pick up a fourth team member.
“Oui, ma’am,” Bartholomew eventually answered. “We think there’s something pretty major going on and we’d really like to have her help on this one. If that’s okay with you?”
“Oh,” the woman patted her hands heavily on her thighs once in a show of drama. “When has it ever not been okay?”
Josh found himself liking the lady more and more. She was a bit flamboyant, kind of like his grandmother, and had a fun way of emphasizing her words with her slight French Canadian accent. Then Hattie came in the room, bounding down the stairs.
Hattie, looked much like a younger version of her mother, tall, darker skin, and deep red hair, cut relatively short and mop-headed like. And she seemed to be about his age. Josh’s heart actually skipped a beat and he felt his hands getting a little sweaty in the nervous anticipation of having to shake her hand.
Peter and Agent Bartholomew stood from the table again. “Ah, Hattie!” Peter replied joyfully, and the pair exchanged kisses on the cheeks.
Turning to the older agent, Hattie put out her hand as Peter introduced him. Then she gestured with her right palm towards Josh and asked in French, “Et qui est ce petit garçon?”
“Well,” Peter stammered at first. “He’s a student from the Detroit suburban area who happened to see a Yeti too. He contacted Agent Davison through some non-official forums and evidently, has put us on the trail of something pretty major. Joshua Manders is his name.”
“Is that right?” she said, strutting around the table a little bit. She was likely a good six inches taller than Josh, but beautiful all the same in her tomboy attire and attitude. She stuck out her hand straight-armed and asked, “Howdy do, Mister Manders?”
Her bite of sarcasm wasn’t lost on Josh. But he did his best to take her hand and shake it.
Hattie’s mother interjected with her French accent, “Hattie, he’s from Detroit, not Dallas. They don’t speak like cowboys everywhere in the US, you know.”
“Ah, right!” Hattie said and then bounced and bounded around the table again and to get a piece of bread from the counter.
Agent Bartholomew interjected to take the reins of the situation. He’d had a couple children and now grandchildren in their teens and figured it was best if he put Peter and Josh out of their misery. “Hattie, we think the Yeti are making a run on the North Pole this year. As you know from past contacts, we’re running a little short on staff during the holidays…”
Hattie’s attention was full bore at that point. Her mouth had dropped and she fiddled with the bread between her two hands. “North Pole?” she repeated in an almost whisper.
“…and so we’re looking for some helping hands. Josh has joined us. Now we’d like you to come along.”
“But why?” Hattie swallowed hard and struggled to get her comments out above a whisper.
Peter spoke up then, “Because, Hattie, believe it or not, you’re actually the leading expert on Yeti at this point. We need you to help us understand them a bit, or at the very least be able to help us out when they use their glimmer to try and scare us off. You’ve been in that sort of situation before.”
“Whadda ‘bout this boy?” Hattie said and gestured mildly with her hand again. The rivalry she seemed to be feeling was palpable.
“No, no. Josh has really only had contact with one,” Peter explained. “Although he’s getting very good about spotting them, I have to admit.”
“Oh,” Hattie replied, and folder her arms one upon the other. She smirked and was feeling empowered again. “So, you say we’re going to the North Pole then? Why would they be going up there?”
Peter and Agent Bartholomew explained the aural scans they’d seen and why it was the concentrated magic at the North Pole might have an appeal to them. Josh wasn’t sure he understood it all. It sounded somewhat like it was one of the few places in the world that magic hadn’t been drained out of the earth by both humans and faeries over the centuries and that the Yeti likely had intentions of mining, or…some other way of collecting the magic for themselves. If he hadn’t just spent the last couple days in a super powered monster truck that could cloak and tracking little magical fuzzballs that could grow in height ten times he would find the whole thing ludicrous. But as it was, he was beginning to get a sense of excitement about the whole trip, like perhaps they were about to save the world and needed him to do it.
Then Josh’s nerves got the best of him and he had to run to the restroom at the back of the house to vomit.