Curiosity Finds A Way: Short Story Collection

By Leenna Naidoo

A variety of flash and short-fiction from fantasy to science-fiction to contemporary romance to suit your mood, breaks and commutes.

Here you’ll find the loquacious detective trying to shake off the god of lurve, a sister or two out for revenge, a trio of sweet lovers with a touch of magic, and a good old-fashioned whirlwind romance on a modern tour of Scotland. Not forgetting some contemporary inspiring peeks and a reminder that the human touch, with a healthy dose of curiosity, can’t ever be replicated.

These stories are all curated from the author’s blog, patron-feed and stories that she loves but just can’t find a home elsewhere.
Other short story collections by this author: I Find Myself Charmed and The Bagua And Other Stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leenna Naidoo/Learning To Surf Publishing
• Release date: Sep 21, 2020

Book preview

Leenna

‘Ogging The Phone

So last Monday, I get to my office and there's this woman with massive sunglasses and a small face. She's tiny—really tiny. Lovely voice though, really mellow. Voice you want answering your phones and stuff. So Ms Mellow's talking to Mandy, my assistant, and they're getting on like a house on fire. I immediately get this bad feeling, striking Mellow off the just-another-soon-to-be-divorcee category.

Long story short, Ms Mellow tells me she's representing a very, very VIP, and that this very, very, VIP needs me to get a hold of some very, very important water (or something) from The Dagda's Cauldron. Payment would be very, very high, if not astronomical.

And Mandy's having hysterics.

Jared, she pleaded. "We've got to take this case!"

In all the years I've known Mandy, she's never pleaded for anything.

So I tell both ladies straight, I don't know any Dagda, or what that cauldron might be. I'm no archaeologist or academic. And I don't search for water. You want water, you open the tap—not that you can drink it any more, but that's not the point.

Mandy's all, "But Jared! I can do this! I studied The Dagda for years. You can't not if you're studying the Celtic religion. Besides, this would be the perfect case to test my new psychic method!"

Did I mention Mandy majored in Celtic History? As for her being psychic...Yeah, well, I try to forget.

Anyway, I accept the job, thinking it will be good for Mandy to have a case of her own. This fee would make a nice bonus to pay off her student loan and her mum's med bills.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Soft hearts have no business in this business, but this is Mandy we're talking about.

For a while there, it looked like this case would be closed in record time, like by that afternoon. Mandy had tracked down the cauldron to some museum on the other side of town. She toddled down there with her favourite reference book and a bottle of water. Why? I don't know. All she said was she had to pay a tithe. I was under the impression we had to get water out the cauldron, not put it in.

She was set straight on that account by the time I bailed her out that evening with her year-end bonus.

Ms. Mellow, being an avid watcher of local news, was waiting for us back at the office.

Mandy tried to explain herself, I tried to defend Mandy, while Ms. Mellow pointed out our errors in a truly epic catty manner.

Half and an hour later, Ms. Mellow finally winds down, states she’s still retaining us on this case and what our reward money in dollars at successfully completing the case will be. Then she borrows my smartphone, making some lame excuse about losing hers. That should have tipped me off, but...

I could have done with a shorter evening.

While I'm driving Mandy home, she does her freaky psychic thing for real. Her eyes roll back. Her hair’s flying all over the place, as she jerks her head around like a hound searching for a fox.

The Dagda's cauldron...in the ground, hidden from prying eyes...overflowing abundance. Son and wife, caretakers. At home...the old country...the old hearth...

She snapped her eyes open, rearranged her hair, and told me to drive her to the airport. She'd divined the location of the real cauldron.

It's in Ireland, no kidding.

Three hours later, I'd lost the argument and was on the red-eye to Dublin. Fortunately, my bag in the trunk has clean underwear. You just never know when you're going to need a new pair on this job.

* * *

While we cruised at 33,000 feet—Mandy pouring over her old Irish Myths book and going on about how the Dagda was tricked out of his home by his own son, Angus Ogg—I thought long and hard about the VVVIP client. I hadn't been too pleased when I found out who he actually was. Confidentiality forbids me from naming names, but let's just say he's that Irish dude with the big blonde hair, big sunglasses and small voice, know what I'm saying. Never liked him. Never. Not his songs in that boy band, not his home reno show, not his advert for Paco. And his acting? Don't get me started. But he does have a lot of greens; he owns a chain of Golf Course resorts, wouldn't you know.

I asked Mandy about it. Why would Mr VIP need a drink from this specific cauldron?

Oh, she mumbled, munching on an apple which she insists all Celts ate for wisdom. The Dagda was the father god, and drinking from his cauldron gave you unlimited creativity and success in the arts. Bards were always looking for it.

Bards? You mean like poets and stuff?

She nodded. And then I knew why Mr VIP needed a good long swig from this fabled cauldron. He's looking for a new wealth of creativity. Personally, I hoped he'd choke on the cauldron water once he’d paid us.

* * *

So, Tuesday saw Mandy and me wandering around The Old Country. We hired a car and drove those crazy little lanes till we arrived in the middle of no-where along this river, Boyne it's called. We dig, man—actually dig—into this little hill, and find an entrance door. Never been so freaked out in my life. I only went on from there 'cos of Mandy. Couldn't have her going in there alone. And she...She wasn't freaked out a bit by her homing pigeon act.

Inside, the hill creeped me out. My phone hardly made a dent in that dark. Fortunately, Mandy had one of those crank-it-greeny dynamo torches, so we did a little of the Indiana Jones thing.

Long story short, we found the darn cauldron, dripping with water, overflowing as predicted. Must be set over a natural spring. It's an impressive thing. Really took my breath away. There's all these carvings that look like tattoos on its side. And it glows, actually glows!

So, Mandy's filling that bottle of hers, and I'm just having a look around, fascinated—carvings and bronzes everywhere. Then I see Mandy taking a drink from that cauldron. I yelled at her, naturally. You never know what could be in there. Some ancient bug, or worse. She