Why I Let My Hair Grow Out Page 6

  In the meantime, though, I was there, tasting my food and feeling the warmth of a very real-looking fire, while Fergus explained about the suffering and curses the woman Lachama had been talking about.

  “While Cúchulainn has been off studying the arts of war, the Good People have been at their mischief,” he said. “They’ve pockmarked the land with their enchantments and taboos, inscribed on every pillar and stone, carved in the trees and written in the dirt. Some of our folk refuse to leave their homes for fear of stumbling over one of these inscriptions and becoming accursed, but what can we do? The cattle must be tended. Water must be fetched. Every day some new soul falls under the Good People’s spells.”

  “Even Fergus!” Erin chirped. “He came upon one in the pasture one day, branded on the back of one of our best milch cows.”

  “It cast a moon-spell over my heart,” said Fergus, glumly.

  “Now once each month, on the night the moon is new, he is doomed to fall in love with whatever female creature he sees when the first star appears in the sky! And then fall out again when the moon is full,” explained Erin.

  “That sounds exhausting,” I offered, trying to be sympathetic.

  Fergus poked a stick into the fire. “Last month I pledged my troth to a she-goat in the hills,” he said, with a bitter smile. “At least she had no father to chase me with his axe when my affection cooled after a fortnight.”

  “And poor Lachama!” said Erin, stamping out a stray spark. “Her taboo was carved in a stone by the Twisting Brook: ‘Whoseover jumps this stream on a horse black as night will suffer indigestion at every meal for seven years’ time.’ How she suffers! She’s grown so thin this season, always wailing and clutching her guts. If only she were astride her chestnut pony that day, instead of the black!”

  “Aye,” said Fergus. “And worst of all, King Conor himself.” Fergus looked down, in a dark mood.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Fergus!” exclaimed Erin. “It happened during a hunt. Fergus shot a bird and handed it to the king, as tribute. How was he to know the bird was enchanted? It spoke its curse as it died.”

  “Since the king fell under the Good People’s curse he cannot resist any invitation to a feast,” Fergus explained. “When our enemies wish to steal our cattle or plunder our stores of grain, they need only invite the king to dinner and there he will stay, drinking and eating until morning, leaving the land undefended.”

  “And fouling the air with his belches and farts!” teased Erin. I could see she was trying to cheer her brother up.

  “Hush, child! The kingly farts make a royal wind, and you must speak of them with respect!” He smiled and tossed the last wheat cake her way. She stuck out her tongue at him and popped the cake in her mouth.

  “When Cúchulainn returns, perhaps he will know how to make peace with the Good People.” He refilled my cup with a strong, warm drink. “But we’ll speak of that later, after you’ve rested.”

  Erin was entertaining herself by trying to balance on one foot, something I’d seen Tammy do many times. “Fergus, you call them the Good People yet you tell me to shun them. Why shouldn’t I go when they invite me to play in the grassy meadow? Why must I always say no when they offer me their honeycombs and sweet buttered bread?”

  Fergus’s voice grew stern, almost angry. “Have you not heard a thing your elders have said to you? The Good People are part of the land, and we must abide with them, but their mischief knows no end, and they fill our lives with heart-break.” He caught his sister by the wrist. “Take one bite of their food and we’ve lost you forever.”

  “Ouch,” she said, twisting herself free.

  “Who are these ‘Good People’?” I asked.

  My question seemed to surprise him. “It’s what we call the Ancient Ones. The Lordly Ones. The people of Tír na nÓg.” Fergus looked at me strangely. “The ones from your land, Morganne.”

  Which land did he mean? East Portwich? Old Greenchester? “You mean, from Connecticut?” I asked, dumbly.

  “Your people,” he said. “The faery folk.”

  it took me a while to stop laughing. poor fergus was confused by my reaction. “Why do you laugh when I speak of the faeries?” he asked.

  “It’s just, ‘faery folk’—it means something different where I come from, that’s all.” I had to wipe tears out of my eyes. I hate that I cry when I laugh, but I do. That was one of the reasons I stopped joking around with Raph. I got tired of him telling me my mascara was wrecked and I should go fix it.

  “Oh, tell us!” demanded Erin. “How are your faery folk different from ours? Are they good or evil? Can you see them and speak to them? Do they steal away children and leave changelings in their cribs instead? Do they come out in the daytime or only at night?”

  The kid wanted an answer, so I calmed myself and obliged. “Where I come from, the faery folk are this group of guys that come to your house and redecorate when you’re not home,” I explained. “They cut your hair and throw away all your clothes. Then they buy you new ones.”

  “The rogues!” said Erin, wide-eyed. “So they’re evil faeries!”

  “No, they mean well,” I said, trying to keep a straight face. “They think they’re being helpful. Sometimes they totally trash your stuff and make fun of your favorite shirt, but then sometimes they give you a plasma TV, and that chills most people out. It’s all in fun.”

  “It’s the same as here, then.” Erin sighed. “Mischief is bread and mead to the faery folk.”

  What kind of kid uses a word like “mead”? I cracked up again.

  Fergus saw me laughing and crying. “She’s a queer one for sure, that Morganne,” he said, elbowing Erin in the ribs.

  even in dreams little sisters eventually get put to bed, and after Erin was asleep Fergus asked me to walk through the village with him. The yummy drink he’d given me had definitely taken the edge off my worry about when and how this dream might end, so I decided to consider it a dream date and try to enjoy myself.

  We stayed inside the “dun,” which seemed to mean the large circular embankment that surrounded all the houses. There were goats and chickens running about, small fires burning in front of houses, women churning butter, men cleaning the horses’ harnesses and people doing their end-of-day chores pretty much as they still do today, except without any labor-saving appliances or cable TV to channel surf when the work is done.

  Everywhere we walked, people nodded respectfully to Fergus, and pointed and whispered when they saw me. A couple of women started to shriek and ran into their houses. Not what you’d call a big self-esteem builder. I finally asked Fergus what was going on.

  He scuffed his leather-clad feet. “It’s been foretold by our Druid priests that King Conor will never be cured of his curse until he is wed to a maiden of fire and gold.” Fergus smiled at me, a little shy. “Perhaps they think you are the one?”

  “Why me? I don’t get it.”

  “Your hair, Morganne,” said Fergus, gently lifting a wavy lock of my new Rapunzel tresses till it shone in the flickering light of a nearby fire. “Yellow and red, and it glitters like polished metal—surely it is the color of fire and gold.”

  “Dude, I’m sixteen,” I cried. “I’m not getting married!”

  He dropped my hair and looked at me kindly. “True, ’tis old to not have a husband already chosen, but you shouldn’t despair of it yet, Morganne!” His eyes were a twinkling, cornflower blue. “There’s many a good man who would take you to his hearth, and gladly.” He glanced away again. These ancient warrior types could be bashful about girls, apparently.

  “Well, I’m not marrying any farting old king, that’s for sure,” I said, and he laughed.

  “Aye.” He took my arm as we started to walk. “It’s no easy task to glean the true meaning of a prophecy. Time and fate alone will reveal what’s to come.”

  “Aye,” I agreed, just for fun. Saying it made me feel like a pirate. “You’re not married, are you, Fergus?” He wasn’t wearing a ri
ng, but who knew if rings were the custom here in dreamland?

  Fergus’s eyes turned sad as quickly as they’d grown merry. “What kind of husband could I be, with the Fairy Folk’s love-sickness curse upon me?” he asked. “And when Cúchulainn returns, my first duty will be to drive his chariot, as I swore to do when we were boys together. That’s no life for a woman, waiting at home and wringing her hands while her mate is off getting killed in battle.”

  He talked about getting killed as if it were just another one of life’s unpleasant necessities, like taking the SATs. I didn’t want to go there—why spoil my own dreamworld?—so we kept walking, this time away from the village and toward the field where the horses were grazing for the night.

  When we got to the edge of the grass Fergus gave a soft whistle, and Samhain appeared as if out of nowhere. I petted his velvet nose as he nickered softly, in pure contented-horse language this time. Fergus took off his cloak and spread it over the damp grass. We sat down and looked up at the night sky, with Sam grazing next to us.

  “See,” he said, pointing upward. “The moon is waning. Tomorrow it will be gone. I’m free of my love madness now, but only till the first star appears tomorrow night.”

  Just my stinky luck to be having a dream date with a guy who’d be falling in love with some random livestock the next day. On the other hand, how long could this dream last? If it was a dream, that is. But if it wasn’t, what the fek was going on?

  Thinking about this was starting to make my head hurt. Time to change the subject.

  “So tell me, Fergus,” I said, pulling the edge of the cloak up around my legs. “Who’s this ‘Kahoolin’ you keep talking about?” That’s what the name sounded like to me. “And where is he, and why is everyone waiting for him to come back?”

  “ ‘Who’s Cúchulainn?’ she asks!” Fergus laughed, his spirits rising again. “Am I destined to give up being a charioteer and take up the lute of a bard? Why else would you test my ability to tell you a tale you already know so well?”

  “Just tell me the damn story, okay?” I snuggled into the warmth of the cloak. It was made from the tanned hide of some fairly large animal, but this was no time to get squeamish. Besides, I was finding the whole situation—me, Fergus, the moonlight—quite agreeable. Dreamy, in fact. “Pretend I’ve never heard it before.”

  Fergus smiled and his dimples started to show again. “Attend my story, then, newborn Morganne, for surely ye can have spent no more than an hour on this earth if ye’ve never yet heard the name of Cúchulainn!” He pulled his side of the cloak up too, and rolled himself closer to me, pitching his voice low for an audience of one.

  “I speak now of Cúchulainn,” Fergus began. “Greatest of the heroes of Ulster, the Guard-Dog of our people, the Hound who is fated to save and defend us all! His battle cry is fierce; his chariot makes the ground shake; when the fever of war is upon him, he can hardly tell friend from foe. An entire war band is no match for one man, if that man is Cúchulainn when he is in his fighting temper. . . .”

  Kahoolin, ka-shmoolin. The night air was chilly but it was warm beneath the cloak, and Fergus’s voice was a smooth low lullaby, and the story was wonderfully boring, all about war and sword-waving and thundering hooves and crap like that.

  Can you fall asleep inside a dream? Apparently so, because that is exactly what I did.

  nine

  “Mor? Open your eyes, luv. it’s your Old pal colin talking.”

  I wanted to stay inside the soft fur of the cloak, wrapped in the warmth of Fergus’s voice, but there was something freezing cold on top of my head and I came to with a violent shiver.

  “Too cold!” I said. My eyes flew open. Colin’s face was very close to mine, his cornflower-blue eyes gazing at me with concern. I could smell his spicy drugstore aftershave, mixed with the faint aroma of cola and cigarettes. Quite pleasant, actually.

  “You smell good,” I mumbled.

  His face turned pink and he jumped back about a foot. “Well, if you’re busy smellin’ people I guess that means you’re alive,” he said, with an embarrassed smile. “Can you sit up, then?”

  Of course I could sit up. Why wouldn’t I be able to—but as I moved, my head throbbed and I was hit by a wave of nausea. Colin moved with me, maintaining a constant distance as if we were dancing, and I realized he was holding an ice pack on top of my head.

  I looked around, turning my head as little as possible because of the ice pack and also so I wouldn’t make myself puke. We were by the side of the road, in the same spot where I’d wiped out. My bike was lying on the ground, looking a bit bent, and I was sitting in the dirt in a shallow ditch alongside. The skin on my right forearm was scraped and raw, and on my right leg the sweatpants were stuck to my skin. A dark spot of blood below my knee was seeping through the fabric.

  Colin was in the dirt next to me. Patty and Lucy Faraday were standing behind him, looking at me with stricken faces, like I was a heap of severed limbs they’d just discovered in a Dumpster.

  “Ow,” I said. This was more because of their horrified expressions than because I could feel any real pain.

  “You’re all right, Mor. Bump on the head and a bit o’ road rash, looks like,” Colin said. “The biker’s badge of honor. Now you’re official. You can come back and work for us next summer.” He grinned and winked, but the worry didn’t leave his face.

  I looked past Colin and saw his van parked nearby, skewed across the entire width of the road. It made me wonder what would happen if someone needed to drive by, but two vehicles would qualify as a traffic jam around here.

  “Can you tell us your name?” Patty demanded.

  “Morganne. I mean, Morgan,” I said.

  “Wiggle fingers and toes?”

  I complied.

  “Brilliant,” said Colin. “Now can you do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around?” Colin’s deadpan was so excellent for a minute I thought he was serious.

  Patty put her hands on her hips, Wonder-Woman style, and looked up the road. “You shouldn’t even be on this road. It’s not part of our route.” She frowned. “If Mrs. Faraday here hadn’t seen you turn down it, we’d have had the devil’s time finding you.”

  It’s always the way, when you get hurt: First people are happy you’re alive, then they want to kill you.

  “Guess I made a wrong turn,” I said, trying to sound witless. People can’t get mad at you if you convince them you’re too dumb to get stuff right. I was still clinging to that theory, anyway.

  “I’m sure ’twas my fault, Patty,” Colin said, clambering to his feet. “I should’ve done a more thorough job explaining the day’s map. If I take her to hospital now we might make it back to the inn for supper.” When he got up he left the ice pack perched on my head and I had to grab it before it slid down my back.

  “I’m fine!” I protested, trying not to wobble as I stood. I loathed hospitals worse than Sophie Billingsley loathed pink. Colin reached back in time to catch me before I toppled over. “I’m not going to the hospital.”

  “Ye surely are, Morgan,” said Patty, immovable as a tree. “You’ve got a lump on your head like a pigeon’s egg. You’ve got to be checked. And where’s your helmet, come to think of it?”

  “Must have come off when I crashed,” I mumbled. “I guess I didn’t buckle it right.” I made a lame effort to pretend to look for the helmet, but moving just made my head hurt, so I stopped.

  “Never mind it; we’ve got plenty more,” Patty said, more kindly. “You go see the doctor with Colin. I’m going to call your parents and tell them what’s happened.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” I said, quickly. Who wanted to deal with the trans-Atlantic hysteria? Not me. “I just fell off my bike, okay? It’s not an international incident or something.”

  “We’ll talk about it when you get back from hospital,” said Patty, and that was that. She put on her helmet and walked back to her bike.

  Lucia was still standing there, holding her bike
next to her, her lips pressed together, silently watching Colin help me to the van. She’d said nothing this whole time. Maybe she was pissed about not having the happy afternoon of Irish scenery and tearful buddy-to-buddy reminiscing she’d been expecting. Maybe she was pissed I lied about the helmet—she’d seen me riding without it. Like it mattered. It was my head, after all.

  “Feel better, Morgan,” she said at last, as she slowly mounted her bike. “I’ll see you later.”

  poor lucia. all alone on the world’s saddest vacation and she has to be buddies with the one person more miserable than her. But those are the breaks, I thought, as I gingerly maneuvered myself into the van. If other people had the power to make my life suck so much, it was only logical that I must be an essential part of making other people’s lives suck. It was like that law of physics Raph tried to explain to me once: the Universal Theory of Sucking.

  Honestly there was no reason for me to feel one bit sorry for Lucia Faraday. This was a woman who’d actually mated with her soul mate. Now he was dead, which of course bites, but how many people even get to have a soul mate? I was positive I would never find mine. I could barely get to know people before they started hating me.

  Case in point: Colin. Just two days ago he was merrily chatting and teasing and telling me how we’d be friends. Now, as he turned the key in the ignition and shifted the van into gear, he looked mad enough to spit.

  “Guess what I found back at the inn?” he said, abruptly. “Your helmet. Bloody stupid, Mor.”

  Meaning: He’d also known I was lying. So he’d covered for me, but he wasn’t happy about it. He’d lied to his boss and now he had to take me to the hospital even though he probably hated me and wished I’d been found dead by the roadside, my remains already being devoured by animatronic—well, cows don’t eat people, but maybe killer sheep or something. The details didn’t matter. The whole situation was a perfect example of how my mere existence introduced suckiness into the lives of all who crossed my path.