Why I Let My Hair Grow Out Page 16

  For the first time, Cúchulainn looked at me with real respect. “Aye, Captain!”

  He sounded just like Scotty in Star Trek.

  a pristine new hurling field had magically appeared in Samhain’s favorite grazing meadow. This didn’t really come as a surprise. By now I understood that Faery Folk, even spoiled little boy Faery Folk, could do some major magic.

  What did surprise me was that the field was surrounded by an enormous open-air stadium, with rings of bleachers rising all around. And the stadium was packed.

  Thousands upon thousands of spectators were waiting for the game to begin, excited and laughing and unpacking their picnic baskets. I’d been to see the Yankees play at Yankee Stadium a few times with my dad, and the size of this crowd was definitely in that ballpark, if you will excuse the expression. Main difference being, these spectators were special.

  They were the Faery Folk. Many of them were tall and beautiful, with the lithe grace Finnbar had. These faeries were dressed in elegant clothes from every conceivable era, like a reference book on costume design come to life. But there were other types of magical beings too: short troll-like creatures, tiny flower-faeries that flitted about nervously, a crowd of massive hairy ogres getting into a fight near a hot-dog vendor. There was even a splash-zone section down front that was reserved for merrows, all of whom carried big sport bottles filled with water and were helpfully squirting each other to keep cool.

  The more I scanned the crowd, the more odd things I noticed: Tinker Bell from the Disney version of Peter Pan. The kids from my middle-school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, still in costume. A garden gnome my dad bought at a garage sale and put on the front lawn as a joke last summer (at the moment the gnome was slathering himself with sunblock). The animatronic vegetables and farm animals from Lucky Lou’s, the excitable blond guy from Queer Eye—I saw all of them in the stands, alive and chatty and happily anticipating the game that was soon to begin.

  Too. Much. Information. If I let myself get addled by what I was seeing, my razor-thin grasp of hurling would be knocked right out of my head, so I forced myself to turn away and walk onto the field. As I did, I caught a glimpse of another creature—a very short little man, dressed in green and waving at me from between the legs of a tall faery woman in a beaded flapper dress—

  “Fergus!” I grabbed his arm. “Look! Do you see that?”

  “See what, Captain?”

  “I could have sworn I—See! He’s right there, watching us from behind his pot of gold—”

  “Calm down, darling,” said Fergus. From the pumped-up way he twirled his hurley stick I could tell he was eager for the game to begin. “Now you’re imagining things.”

  “But don’t you see him?” I was amazed. “In that three-cornered hat, he’s no taller than my knee—look, he’s smoking a pipe! He’s winking at us!”

  “You’re just nervous, my love. Believing the tales we tell children at bedtime.” He tugged my arm gently to lead me out to the field. Whatever I’d seen was gone.

  “But the faeries”—I looked around at the packed stadium, worried that I’d lost my mind relative even to Long-ago standards—“you can see them, right? You believe they’re real?”

  He looked at me with fond indulgence. “That’s because faeries are real, Morganne! But there’s no such thing as leprechauns. Everyone knows that!”

  He kissed me quickly and took his place at the goal.

  twenty

  the faeries had left One small, noticeably ramshackle section of bleachers roped off and marked with a misspelled sign: HEWMANS SIT HEARE. Erin was seated with the humans, of course, as were King Conor and the newly queened Dana.

  I waved at Erin, and she waved back. I hoped it didn’t make her nervous sitting so close to all those faery folk after what happened to her at the swamp, but she seemed fine, bouncy and revved-up about the game.

  Cúchulainn and I were front-line offense, with a row of three defensive players behind us, chosen from among King Conor’s buffest warrior-dudes. As we lined up in our positions I wondered what was about to happen. Once the game was over and (hopefully) the enchantments were broken, would I be whisked away again to my bike tour, to Connecticut, to parts unknown? I should have said good-bye to Fergus, just in case, but he was playing goalie and the game was about to begin.

  Finnbar and Maeve were the front offensive line for their team. That meant they were standing directly in front of us. Finnbar was dressed in a spotless Victorian fencing outfit, complete with face mask.

  “I hope you enjoy the game,” he shouted through the mask. “It was so much trouble to arrange!”

  “This stadium couldn’t have been that difficult for you to whip up,” I said.

  “Not the stadium, you ding-dong! I mean putting all those enchantments everywhere until you came back! And then waiting forever while you figured out my clues!”

  Could I possibly be dumb enough to have not figured this out already? “Wait,” I said. “Did you put all the enchantments on King Conor’s people?”

  Finnbar giggled and did a little soft-shoe dance with his hurley stick.

  “It was a tremendous lot of work! Especially making up that stupid riddle. ‘Tilling, willing, killing.’ I spent an entire afternoon coming up with the rhymey bits.”

  The brat! I wanted to smack him with my hurley stick, but no killing, no killing, not to mention hitting him with my hurley would be a foul. “But Finnbar!” I sputtered. “Do you realize how much trouble you’ve caused?”

  “Oh, but it was worth it,” he crowed. “Don’t you think? How often do I get to play at hurleys with my sister?”

  My head started to hurt. My faery-brother Finnbar had set up this entire scenario because he wanted me to play with him.

  “And it was funny watching the king eat!” he added. “And the silly man making love to the frog! You must admit, you thought so too!”

  When I get home, I thought, if I ever get home, I am going to sit and play Barbies with Tammy till she screams for mercy. In the meantime—

  “You thought so too!” Finnbar laughed. “You thought so too!”

  “Let the game begin!” King Conor bellowed.

  it’s just field hockey, i told myself, as both teams charged to gain possession of the sliothar. With weird rules and magic people watching. You can do this. Just go with it.

  We managed to score some legitimate points during the first half of the game, but my team made two fouls, both committed by the captain, of course. First I ran five steps holding the sliothar, then I threw it instead of whacking it with my hand. Each one of those errors gave Queen Maeve’s team a free strike and that tipped the advantage to their side, since Finnbar insisted on being his team’s free-striker. Each time he conjured a golden eagle that aided his strike by catching the sliothar in its claws and carefully delivering it into the goal. Was this cheating? Maybe, but I wasn’t going to be the one to argue with him.

  Some of my teammates started grumbling for me to deliver some magic on the field as well (yeah, right), but instead I committed a third foul by shoulder-tackling Maeve a little too hard. We both ended up in the dirt.

  “You bitch!” she said, in a friendly tone of admiration.

  Fergus was by my side instantly. “Morganne, are you all right? Beloved, my beloved! Let me help you.”

  He lifted me to my feet and brushed the dirt off my clothes, leaving Maeve lying on the ground.

  “Your boyfriend is cute,” she said testily. “But he’s no gentleman.”

  Of course, I thought to myself. This is how it begins. It’s me who introduces them. “Fergus,” I said, knowing full well what was about to happen. “This is a game, not a battle. Would you help Queen Maeve up, please?”

  Fergus would do anything I asked, of course, and he extended his hand to the sprawled queen. She shamelessly checked him out, taking a long look up and down his shirtless, blue-painted, muscled warrior-dude bod. Then she grasped his hand firmly and pulled herself to he
r feet.

  Chemistry. It zapped her, the minute they touched. I could see it on her face. Fergus didn’t notice because he was still mooning over me, but if we won the game and the enchantments were broken his moonstruck condition would be cured quite soon. And guess who would be waiting in line?

  “Your name.” It was a question but she didn’t say it like a question. She kept possession of Fergus’s hand the way Cúchulainn kept possession of the sliothar. Like you’d have to lop off a limb to get it away from her.

  “Fergus,” he said gruffly. They were exactly the same height, and they stood nose to nose. “Fergus Mac Roy.”

  Maeve dropped Fergus’s hand without a word and walked over to me.

  “Mine,” she said, right in my face.

  “I know,” I said.

  It wasn’t the answer she was expecting.

  “foul!” yelled the referee. so far he’d been pretty fair, for an ogre.

  “Morgan made another foul, so I get a free kick!” yelled Finnbar. “I’ll do it I’ll do it let me let me let me!”

  Thanks to my fouls, Queen Maeve’s team was three points ahead at the end of the first half. However, during my thirty cumulative minutes of hurling experience I had made some progress in my ability to run while balancing the sliothar on my hurley, and I felt confident I could avoid committing any more damaging fouls in the second half.

  During halftime the merrows provided all the players with cool, refreshing drinks of water. It was the most delicious and thirst-quenching water I’d ever tasted. Salty and sweet at the same time, like magic Gatorade.

  Fergus’s knees and forearms were scraped and bleeding from diving to block goals. He seemed very happy. I knew I had to talk to him now, while I had the chance.

  “Fergus,” I said. “When the game is over—”

  “I’ll still love you, Morganne.”

  “That’s nice, Fergus.” I tried not to be distracted by how cute he looked with dirt on his face. “But if we win, when the game ends, so will the enchantments.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, chugging his merrow drink. “I’ll always feel the same way.”

  “Everybody thinks that when they’re in love with someone. But you can—” I felt my mother’s words coming out of my mouth, always a frightening experience. “—you can move on. And you will. And it’s usually for the best.”

  “I’ll always love you, Morganne.” He moved to kiss me. I wondered if Maeve was watching. I stopped him.

  “Listen, Fergus, please. I don’t know what will happen to me when the game ends, and just in case we don’t get to say good-bye—I wanted to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  I tried to memorize the color of his eyes, a cornflower blue that sparkled in the light. If I ever forgot I’d just have to look at Colin.

  “For loving me so truly,” I said. “For treating me so well.”

  “But, Morganne.” He touched my hair and tenderly pushed it away from my face. “There is no other way to love.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “And I promise you that I will always remember that from now on. Okay?”

  He laughed. “Okay!” he said. It sounded so funny coming out of his mouth. “Okay, my captain!”

  “Now let’s win this game!” I hollered, loud enough for the whole stadium to hear me. “Let’s win one for King Conor and Queen Dana!”

  Ten thousand magical beings started doing the wave in the stands.

  hurling Was a fast and brutal sport. unless the sliothar went out of bounds or a foul was called, the play was relentless, with both teams running back and forth across the long grassy field without relief, fighting over possession of the sliothar (which was no bigger than a baseball and easy to lose sight of ) and trying to score a goal.

  By the time we got to the final minutes, I was beyond winded. Fergus defended our goal like a crazed animal, and Cúchulainn just kept getting stronger and stronger. Like me he’d committed a personal foul (he’d whacked one of Queen Maeve’s players on the thigh with his hurley in a fit of temper; luckily nothing important was lopped off), but it was largely thanks to Cúchulainn’s ferocity that the score was now tied.

  Finnbar, naturally, kept conjuring up flying carpets and enchanted surfboards and other faery-powered means to transport him swiftly back and forth across the field. The kid was barely sweating.

  “Final play!” announced the ogre referee, after consulting his sundial. “Next point wins the game!”

  The ref tossed the sliothar onto the field and it rolled right toward me. I scooped it up with my hurley and ran hard toward the goal. My defensive line fell back behind me and Cúchulainn raced ahead, whooping and showering the field with sparks.

  “Isn’t this fun!” yelled Finnbar. He was galloping after me on a silver-horned stag and swung his hurley hard against mine, knocking the sliothar into the air.

  I leapt up and smacked the ball with my hand. “Pass!” I screamed, hoping Cúchulainn was in position.

  He was, but just as he was reaching for the sliothar Queen Maeve intercepted. With a blood-curdling warrior cry, she expertly maneuevered the sliothar back across the field, punting it along the ground with her hurley stick just like in field hockey, scooping it up to safety when Cúchulainn was ready to steal it away, bouncing it up into her hand for a few strides and then back to the hurley—my defensive line was swarming around her like bees but no one could get the sliothar away from her.

  She was barely close enough to the goal to attempt a shot, but Maeve was going for the gold anyway. “Score!” she screamed, and with a mighty swing she sent the sliothar sailing like a major league fastball, right at Fergus.

  It was moving almost too fast to see, but Fergus jumped, stretched, reached, and—ouch!—caught it in his bare hand.

  “Fek!” he shrieked in agony. But he didn’t let go.

  The crowd went insane. Fireworks made of fairy dust started to explode in the sky above us, spelling out FERGUS MAC ROY and providing an instant slo-mo replay of his amazing catch.

  With a groan, Fergus tossed the sliothar sideways to Cúchulainn. Cúchulainn trapped it with his hurley and started to travel with it back toward the opposing goal. I could tell by the furious tornado spinning above his head that he was not going to surrender the sliothar to anyone, for any reason.

  “No killing!” I yelled, as a precaution, but I knew my words didn’t matter.

  “I’ll stop him!” It was Finnbar. He was all alone at the far end of the field, defending his goal against Cúchulainn. A little boy trying to block the approach of a freight train that had no brakes.

  Where was his team? I wheeled around, looking for red-painted faces. I found them soon enough. They were dangling helplessly in midair, ten feet above the center line, and looking very angry indeed, especially Maeve, whose salty protests were certainly not fit for the ears of children.

  “Nice work, Captain!” shouted King Conor from the stands. But it was Finnbar’s magic that had put his teammates out of commission, not mine. Talk about hogging the ball!

  “Let them go, Finnbar,” I said. “You need your team!”

  “But I want to do it myself!” he cried.

  Cúchulainn was barreling single-mindedly toward the goal. He was in full battle fury now, sparks flying, and there was no stopping him. Finnbar was seconds away from being flattened.

  “And I don’t want my brother to get hurt!” I yelled back. True, Finnbar was a spoiled brat, but except for the magic powers and immortality he was basically just a kid, right?

  “Do you mean it?”

  “Sure,” I yelled. “You’re the only brother I have.” I winked at him. He laughed, and in that moment he seemed exactly like a normal little boy. Then Cúchulainn fired his shot.

  It was a doozy, whipping through the air at ninety miles an hour at least—till Finnbar pointed a finger. The sliothar froze in the air and hung there for a moment before continuing on its way, spinning and tumbling toward the goal in exquisitely sl
ow motion.

  Foiled by magic! I saw Cúchulainn’s rage rise in him and pour out of his eyes like streams of molten lava. The odds of us winning or getting out of this game without any killing seemed to dwindle to zero, as the sliothar made its lazy, slow arc toward the goal. Anybody could have caught it.

  But Finnbar did nothing to stop the sliothar. Nothing at all. We stood there, dumbstruck, as he happily watched it rotating against the sky, sailing in a long curved arc until it floated gently through the goalposts.

  No one dared cheer.

  “Beautiful shot!” Finnbar cried, breaking the silence. “I just wanted to see how it flew!”

  “Game!” yelled the ogres, as the rest of Maeve’s team dropped to the ground with a thud. “The victory goes to King Conor’s team! Hip hip! Hurrah! Hip hip! Hurrah!”

  the spectators charged the field, and it Was the happiest kind of pandemonium.

  Where was Fergus? I turned around, searching. King Conor and his wife were engaged in a public display of royal affection. The king suddenly looked twenty pounds lighter and was very handsome indeed, as if the weight from all that enchanted eating had melted away with the spell.

  Nearby I overheard Erin speaking to Finnbar firmly. “Apology accepted. And as long as you behave like a gentleman, I will enjoy playing with you. But no more tricks.”

  “I promise,” he said, sounding quite contrite.

  Suddenly I was flying. Fergus had found me and lifted me up in a dizzying victory twirl.

  “You did it!” he said. “You did it! Victorious captain!”

  “Is the enchantment broken?” I searched his face, wanting to see the change for myself.

  “It is.” He smiled at me, his bright blue eyes twinkling with love. “I’m my own man once more. But still yours. Ever yours, Morganne.”

  I felt a little pang, thinking how Maeve would soon get to know Fergus in a way I hadn’t. His handsome, dirty face started to go out of focus.

  Their love would become the stuff of legend. Pretty cool, that. Something to aspire to, even.