Why I Let My Hair Grow Out Read online

  the Only tango music i knew Was “hernando’s Hideaway” from The Pajama Game, as plunked out on an out-of-tune piano on Sarah’s rehearsal tape. I couldn’t remember any of the words, so we had to settle for me singing and clapping, “Bum, de bum, de bum bum bum!”

  I taught them the steps I could remember and made up the rest, and over the course of the afternoon I managed to get King Conor and Dana doing a very basic, half-remembered version of a high-school musical version of a Broadway show version of the tango. Authentic? Hell no, but that wasn’t my goal.

  “Whoops! I stepped on your foot!” Dana laughed.

  “My fault, my fault,” said King Conor. “I think I’m a few beats behind. Are my hands too sweaty?”

  “Not at all,” Dana replied. “Shall we take it from the top?”

  “That’s enough for today!” I said, wiping my brow with my flowy cream-colored sleeve, which was now tinged a mossy shade of green from my several under-sea and under-swamp excursions. “Tomorrow we’ll add the spins. And we definitely need some real music.”

  “Do you mind if we practice more after you go?” asked King Conor. “If, of course, Dana is willing.”

  “I would be delighted,” she said. They turned back to each other. It was like they’d forgotten I was even in the room.

  tammy Was swimming—no, it Was sophie billingsley, at least it looked like Sophie but I knew it was really Tammy somehow—anyway, she was swimming underwater and I was with her and we weren’t mermaids at all, we were us and we needed to breathe now, and we swam and kicked but it seemed like we weren’t getting any closer to the surface—

  “Wake up,” crooned a male voice.

  “Colin,” I mumbled. “I was dreaming.”

  “It’s Fergus, beloved.”

  I breathed in the strong, familiar smell of earth and grass and horses, and I opened my eyes. It was Fergus smiling at me. Then I remembered. After I’d picked the right moment to give King Conor and Dana some privacy, Fergus and I had decided to take Sam out for a graze. I must have fallen asleep in the grass.

  “Dreaming of your other world, eh?” Fergus said.

  My first impulse was to shrug off the question, but a person of honor hides nothing, after all. “My sister,” I said. “Her name is Tammy.”

  Fergus started massaging my tired dancing feet, a task he performed as if it made him the happiest man in the world. “A sister! Is she magic like you?”

  “She’s interested in magic, that’s for sure. Magic kingdoms, especially.” I smiled, thinking of Tammy’s Disney addiction, and how she’d sit there singing in front of the TV. “And she says she can see faeries in the garden.”

  “Well, ye’d have to be blind not to see faeries in the garden.” Fergus laughed. “They’re common as weeds! But I’m glad her eyes are healthy. And this ‘Colin’—your brother, I suppose?”

  I wondered if maybe he was fishing for boyfriend dirt, but Fergus was not the type to fish. “No,” I said. “He’s a friend. But the two of you could be brothers, you’re very alike.”

  “Poor fellow!” Fergus said. “If he’s very like me, he must be in love with you. And if we met, we’d have no end of fighting! Better if we didn’t.”

  Of course they would never meet, I thought. But would I ever see Colin again? Or was Long-ago my world, now? It had been a night and a day since I popped up in the swamp with Erin, the longest time I’d spent here.

  “Fergus,” I asked, leaning back in the grassy meadow. “Could you explain something to me?”

  He smiled and moved his attention to my calves. “Anything, beloved.”

  “Everyone keeps saying I’ve got faery blood or I’m part goddess.” Sam gave a little nicker from where he was munching nearby.

  “Not part,” Sam said, his mouth full. “Half.”

  Even a horse knew more about me than I did. “I can’t remember anything about it,” I said. “Who are my parents?”

  Fergus’s fingers were digging into my calf muscles with just the right amount of pressure. “If I tell you, will you let me kiss you?”

  “You can kiss me anyway!” I laughed. “But tell me first.”

  “You are Morganne,” Fergus said softly. “You’re the daughter of a mortal man and faery queen. Your father was lured into the vale of the Immortal Ones by a powerful enchantress.”

  “A faery queen? Are you sure?” I thought of my real mother, my Connecticut mother, the coupon-clipping queen of Lucky Lou’s.

  “Aye. There she seduced him and together they tilled the fields of passion until a child was conceived. Afterward your father awoke in the tender grass with naught but the clothes on his back and sweet, sweet memories.”

  Sam gave an appreciative snort, but it might have been more about the tender grass than the miracle of my conception.

  “Nine months later he was summoned by a crow that spoke to him in the language of birds,” Fergus went on. “The crow led him back to the faery mound, where a babe in arms was given to him to raise.” He smiled, as if I should know the rest.

  A faery mound. “I think I know the place,” I said. “Was the baby me?”

  “ ’Twas you yourself, Morganne. Half human, half divine. And with you came a prophecy.”

  Duh. Did anything come without a prophecy in these parts?

  “What was it?” I was almost afraid to know.

  “That though Morganne would not live among us, she was one of us, to love and to long for but never possess.” He smiled a sad smile. “And whenever the people of King Conor’s realm needed a champion to intercede with the Lordly Ones, Morganne would appear and offer her help. But she would never stay past the time of her service.”

  “And my father?”

  Sam stamped his feet.

  “Killed in battle long ago,” said Fergus gently.

  I didn’t know how to feel about that. “Thank you for telling me,” I said.

  Fergus took my hands in his. “May I take my payment?”

  Like I would say no. Sam was kind enough to look away, and Fergus laid a smooch on me that promised to leave scorch marks on the earth.

  “Morganne,” he whispered. “Are you sure? I know you told me we are forbidden to consummate our love—”

  I put my finger to his lips. “You heard the prophecy,” I said. “It’s just not a good idea.”

  “This See Vee Ess must be a very powerful wizard, then.” He took my face in his hands and ran his fingers through my long, thick, shampoo-commercial hair. “I’d eat you up like a bowl of gruel if I could,” he murmured, before kissing me again.

  “What?” My voice was muffled by the kiss.

  “I said, I’d eat you up like a bowl . . .”

  But I’d heard what he said.

  poor Colin. When i swam Off With the merrow at the beach, where could he possibly think I’d gone? If I disappeared under the water and never came back, he’d have swum the ocean himself trying to find me.

  What a good guy, I thought. What a nice, funny, decent, ordinary, great kisser of a guy.

  It was sort of tacky to be thinking of Colin while kissing Fergus, but sort of not. They were so alike, after all: both trustworthy warrior-dudes in their respective Irish, hunky, cornflower-blue-eyed ways.

  I hope he’s okay. I hope he didn’t drown trying to rescue me or get fired for losing one of the customers or, oh fek, get arrested for murder. That would really suck.

  “Why so sad, my love?” whispered Fergus.

  “It’s hard to explain,” I said. “Homesick, I guess.”

  “I wish I could see your home,” he murmured. “Connecticut, you call it? I wish you could take me there.”

  I couldn’t help smiling at the thought. “That would be awesome,” I said.

  “Totally,” he agreed.

  later, after a sweet smooch session With fergus and a pleasant ride back to the dun on Sam’s back, I sat in front of the fire, mulling and thinking about all Fergus had told me. It was quiet, and the dancing flames seemed able to l
ight up corners of my brain that had been sitting in the shadows for a long time. Only then did I understand the full meaning of the prophecy about baby me, the semigoddess Morganne.

  And whenever the people of King Conor’s realm needed a champion to intercede with the Lordly Ones, Morganne would appear and offer her help. But she would never stay past the time of her service. . . .

  I was in Long-ago to break these enchantments. Once I did that, I’d be outta here. Back to my own time, though exactly when and where I’d land I had no clue.

  And if I didn’t? If I couldn’t figure out how to break the spells, or if I tried and failed, or if I just gave up and sat around playing with my hair and sulking?

  Then I’d stay Morganne, happily ever after in the Magic Kingdom of Long-ago Land, decked out in a long Disney princess dress with a hunky warrior-dude boyfriend and no reliable form of contraceptives.

  What I understood is that I had a choice. I could get the job done and go home, or I could relax. Go with the flow. Stay.

  Stay? In Long-ago? And miss the junior prom? No thanks. The hair was fun, but so what. I could always let mine grow out.

  I knew what I needed to do.

  i needed to hire a band.

  For the tangoing twosome to make it all the way to the altar (or the shrine or the sacred grotto or wherever it was the Druids performed their ceremonies), they would need more than me bum-bumming my way through “Hernando’s Hideaway.” They would need ambience, the kind only live music can provide. Call it YBCSWB: Your Basic Castle Scene With Band.

  But how would I find a band? It’s not like I could just log onto MySpace and click on MP3s until I found one I liked.

  Fergus was too busy carving our names in the sides of trees to be of practical assistance. Much as I hated to stroke his ego, I asked Cúchulainn for advice.

  “Dude,” I said. “We need a band. Where can I find some musicians?”

  Cúchulainn stopped polishing his armor long enough to heap some friendly scorn upon me. “Morganne, for a semidivinity, you are an inexplicably ignorant woman,” he said. “This is Ireland. Everyone is a musician.”

  “Great,” I said. “Send some over to the king’s hall. Rehearsal’s at three. I’ll be teaching them a show tune.”

  by the time the second royal dancing lesson Was convened, King Conor and Queen-in-training Dana were holding hands even when they weren’t practicing the tango.

  “Hernando’s Hideaway” sounded a little odd played on the harp and the drum and the wooden flute, but the beat was solid and the royal couple-to-be had the steps down. We added some simple turns and I felt the time was right to do my goddess-of-love thing and give King Conor and Dana a nudge.

  “You two look great together,” I commented. “If you don’t mind me asking, have you had a chance to talk any more about, you know—the relationship?”

  They both got a bit bashful. King Conor started picking threads out of his royal robes.

  “Guys!” I scolded. “A good relationship is all about communication.” This I knew from my mom’s subscription to O, The Oprah Magazine. My mom is very big on Dr. Phil. “Talk!”

  Now they both started laughing. “All is well, Morganne,” said King Conor. “The truth is—in a way—we have already wed.”

  Whoa! Was this what life was like before the tabloids? A king could get married and nobody knew? I was shocked.

  “Conor, that is so sweet!” said Dana, looking deeply into his eyes. “But you’d best tell her what happened.” She looked very pleased with herself. “It might affect the enchantment.”

  The king cleared his throat. “After we were done with our dancing we took a walk in the moonlight, and, well, one thing led to another.”

  “And?” I said, crossing my arms. I sounded exactly like my parents did when they were pumping me for information about where I’d been, what I’d done and who I’d done it with.

  “Well, he’s a great kisser,” explained Dana.

  “And, well. One thing led to another,” repeated the king. The two of them giggled.

  Well well well. Sounded like some royal tilling had occurred.

  “Congratulations, you two!” I said, but I knew it wasn’t enough. Wed fire and gold to the king. Tilling was all very well, but to break the enchantment they were going to have to take it to the next level. “I’m very happy for you. But don’t you think we should celebrate a little? Make it, you know, official?”

  “Not a feast!” moaned Conor. “If we have a wedding feast before this curse is lifted, I’ll just end up eating myself silly.” He looked at Dana. “That wouldn’t be very romantic.”

  “But won’t getting married break the spell?” asked Dana, sounding alarmed. “You promised me once we were married you’d change. No more uncontrollable eating and drinking, remember?”

  “Um. Um. Um,” King Conor stammered.

  “Because I really like to entertain!” she went on. “And I don’t want to find out after it’s too late that you cannot behave like a gentleman at a dinner party!”

  “Um. Um.” He looked at me for help.

  “The spell will be broken, I promise! But there’s one more part of the enchantment I have to solve.” I looked over at the musicians and gave them the get-ready nod. “It’s really easy: We just have to win a war without killing anyone.” Not that I have any clue how to do that, I thought, leading King Conor and Dana to our improvised dance floor. “I’m working on it. In the meantime, how about a celebration that’s not all about food? A simple exchange of vows, perhaps?”

  Dana took a deep breath and looked at King Conor. She really liked him; it was all over her face. “I could make us some lovely rings,” she suggested.

  “And then—a dance?” King Conor smiled shyly at his already-bedded, soon-to-be-wedded bride-to-be. I cued the band with a nod.

  “A dance!” She smiled and stretched out one arm, striking a very nice tango pose. “That would be perfect.”

  eighteen

  What’s lost in the earth must be found,

  But the earth must be turned without tilling.

  Check.

  Wed fire and gold to the king,

  But the lady herself must be willing.

  Check check.

  Let rivals come forth to do battle,

  But the war must be won without killing.

  Let rivals come forth to do battle. I didn’t like the sound of that one bit. For one thing, it sounded serious, like if we didn’t get it right people would get killed. That might be all in a day’s slaying to Cúchulainn and Fergus, but still—it made me anxious. I didn’t even like to smoosh bugs.

  There was something else bothering me too: The keys to solving the first two enchantments had been provided by my other, actual, Morgan self. Only after my date with Colin (where we moved the earth without tilling, sigh!) did the merrow appear and lead me to Erin. And only after I found the lost gold earring of the fiery-tempered Carrie Pippin was I able to peek back into Long-ago and recognize the woman of “fire and gold” the king was meant to marry.

  But now that a couple of days in Long-ago time had passed, it didn’t feel like I was going back to my bike tour anytime soon. Would I ever? Had I disappeared altogether from my own century, or was Morgan-me living out a whole life in some other time-space continuum (thank you, Star Trek) that I didn’t know about, while Morganne-me was spending her summer vacation in King Conorville giving dance class and lamely attempting to undo enchantments?

  If so, I hoped the other me was having fun. If I never made it back, I hoped she would have a nice summer and find a nice boyfriend next year, nicer than Raph for sure, and maybe get back into playing field hockey, and get her driver’s license and go to the prom whether she had a date or not, and spend more time with Sarah and the rest of her old friends before graduation and get into a decent college and pick some sort of interesting career and have a pleasant life.

  As for Morganne, the semidivinity—I might have to figure this one out without any h
elp from Morgan, the cranky suburban teen. The irony did not escape me.

  Let rivals come forth to do battle. Clearly all hell was about to break loose. But until it did, we would dance the tango at a royal wedding.

  i Was expecting the druid priest to be like gandalf from the Lord of the Rings movies, but she was actually a priestess, and a young one at that. She was tall and fair and sporty looking and babbled her incantations in a strange, guttural Druid dialect. She reminded me of Heidi, in fact. Poor Heidi. If I ever saw her again I would offer to take a nice picture of her.

  The ceremony was short and sweet, with the high point being the exchange of the rings. Dana had made a matching pair of her own design—each one a beautiful gold band that ended in a pair of hands holding a single heart between them.

  Afterward, while all the loyal subjects of King Conor’s realm (who’d been warned to eat beforehand, since no food would be served) were gamely imitating the royal couple and inventing their own strange and wonderful versions of the tango, Fergus and I went over to compliment Dana on her jewelry design.

  The newlyweds held out their hands so we could see the rings up close. The two-hands-clasped pattern looked strangely familiar to me.

  “I think it would be nicer with a crown on top,” teased King Conor.

  “No, no, a crown is too much. It’s vulgar!” Dana said. For a minute I was afraid we were about to witness their first official marital spat. But then Dana took his hand.

  “But of course, my husband, if you want one, I can always add a crown.”

  That’s when I started to cry.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Fergus was misty-eyed too.

  “Yes, but it’s just—” I knew he couldn’t really understand, but I’d just figured it out and my heart was so full I had to share the moment with someone. “There was this episode of Buffy, when she and Angel are about to say good-bye, and he gives her a ring exactly like that, because it’s an old Irish tradition, and now, look—it’s all starting right here, and here we are, how cool is that?”