What I Wore to Save the World (10 page)

I saw the fairy-tale castle turrets of the hotel, the pastel-colored cottages, the Greek temples, the Swiss chalets, the domed igloos, the tropical gardens and the desert palms. Near the horizon the approaching sunset streaked the sky with colors out of Tammy's favorite cartoons: Powerpuff Girl pink, SpongeBob yellow and Barney the dinosaur purple.

Was this place real, or make-believe? It was hard to say.
Maybe I should tell him,
I thought impulsively.
Maybe this is my chance to come clean about the whole me-being-a-half-goddess thing. Here it might actually seem normal.

“Sit or walk?” Colin asked.

“Let's sit for a while.”

We found a quiet spot, as close to the water as we could get without the sand being too wet to sit on. Colin turned to me. Before he spoke he looked in my eyes, hard and searching—what was he trying to find? He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, like he was trying to work up the nerve to do something scary.

“Before you start,” I said, squeezing his hand, “let me ask you a very important question: What the fek are you doing in Wales?”

That broke the tension and made him laugh, which was what I'd hoped for. “Well, that's a lot easier to explain than what comes next, so I might as well start there. It was all Grandpap's doing, the troublemaker.”

Then his mood changed. He looked out at the water and spoke quietly, just loud enough for me to hear him over the surf. “I wish ye could've met Granny, Mor. She'd have thought the world of you.”

“I wish I'd met her too,” I said, remembering how close I'd come, once. But that was in the faery realm. Yet another adventure I'd never told Colin about. “Grandpap must miss her so much.”

Colin sighed. “Poor old bloke. After she passed he didn't know which end was up. Mopin' around, talking to himself, not eatin'. Can't blame him, really. The two of them'd been together since—well, since they were our ages, I suppose.”

The sudden, stark image of Colin and me as wrinkled old people, with only one of us left alive to mourn the other at the end of a whole happy lifetime together, flashed through my mind so vividly I had to blink away tears.

He went on. “Then, just last week, clear out of the blue, he announces that there's nothin' he'd rather do than come back to Cyfareddol fer their anniversary. Well, I wasn't wild about the notion. For one thing, the bike tour was supposed to start this week—and I need all the work I can get to earn me tuition fer next year at DCU.”

DCU was Dublin City University, where Colin was putting himself through school. He was studying computer science, of course. Something nice and rational.

“I'm ashamed to say I tried to talk the old boy out of it.” Colin smiled ruefully. “I warned him how it was short notice and this place gets booked up months in advance, but he wouldn't take no fer an answer. And the idea of comin' here seemed to perk up his spirits no end. Against me better judgment I rang up the hotel. I figgered they'd say they were full up and that'd be the end of it, but it turned out the Seahorse was available—the very cottage Grandpap and Granny had stayed in on their honeymoon. Last-minute cancellation or some such thing. Lucky, eh?”

“Very,” I agreed, though I wasn't yet sure that it was.

“Well, now I had to take him, didn't I? So I sucked it up and told Patty at the tour company I'd be startin' a week or two late. You can imagine the colorful language that ensued! But she's got a good heart, does Pat, and she understood. Grandpap and I packed our bags, and here we are.”

I drizzled sand on his bare feet, and smiled at the way his toes flexed and curled in answer. “That makes sense,” I said. “Now let me hear the part that doesn't.”

“Eager for the good stuff, eh?” He gave a wry smile. “From the minute we arrived, Grandpap was happy as a lark. Sometimes I heard him havin' conversations when I knew he was alone in his room. But I didn't think much of it; he's gettin' on in years, after all. Even so, I was reluctant to leave him alone fer any length o' time. But then he befriended that Devyn McAlister fellow. Their card playin' seemed to boost the old boy's mood even more.

“Anyway, a couple of days ago, while Paps and Devyn were safely occupied playing Forty-fives, I finally decided to take a walk by meself. It was a relief, to be honest. I love Paps like anything, but I was gettin' bored playing eldercare nurse, and the pub scene at the hotel is a bit tame for my taste. Ye should hear the bands they book! Barry bleedin' Manilow impersonators! Abba lite, to put it kindly. I'd take the three Irish tenors over that lot any day; they've got more edge.”

“Colin—”

“Right. Anyway, I thought it would be good fun to go explorin', so I headed down the boardwalk to the far end. To where the forest begins. You noticed it yerself when we arrived.”

I nodded.

“It's a funny walk. Looks like the forest is miles away, but the distance is an illusion, really. Ye just keep walkin', the boardwalk comes to an end, and the forest begins, just like that. There's maybe a dozen different trails into the woods, all marked with signs pointin' every which way: ‘The Road Not Taken.' ‘The Path of Least Resistance.' ‘The Lesser of Two Evils.' ”

I laughed. “Which one did you choose?”

I could have sworn he blushed, but maybe it was the way the light grew rosier as the sun finally touched the horizon.

“Don't mock me, darlin', but there was one sign that read ‘This Way to the Faery Glen.'” He smiled, embarrassed. “It made me think of Granny. She used to love them faery stories, I heard 'em over and over as a wee lad. Ye've heard me complain about it, I'm sure!”

“Wait—so you chose the path to the ‘Faery Glen,'” I repeated stupidly. “On purpose?”

“Yes, Officer, I did.” He smoothed the sand with his fingers, an idle, nervous gesture. “The path went straight into the woods. It was one of them tall, shadowy forests that looks like it's been growin' there since the dawn of time. I walked and walked, and soon I started hearin' somethin', a deep and constant sound, like water rushin' through a gorge. I thought I must be gettin' near the glen.”

Then he paused. “But it wasn't water. It was hoofbeats. There was a herd of wild horses in the distance, runnin' through the forest, weavin' in and out o' the trees. At least that's what I thought they were, until they got a wee bit closer.”

Colin hugged his knees and stared out at the sunset. I knew better than to rush him. Finally he spoke, his voice quiet and firm.

“They looked like unicorns, Mor. Beautiful creatures, silver colored. Each with a long, spiral horn stickin' right out of its noggin'. 'Twas all dim and shadowy in the woods, but the horns were aglow, like they were lit from within.” He turned to me. “Like those light-up thingamabubs yer sister likes to run around with at night.”

“Glow sticks,” I said blankly, while thinking,
Fek! Unicorns?
Leprechauns, gnomes, mermaids, faeries—these were old news to me. But even I had never laid eyes on a unicorn.

“What did you do?” I said finally.

He laughed darkly. “Well, to say I was gobsmacked would be an understatement. I figured I'd burst a brain artery and slipped off the beam somehow. I pictured meself droolin' in a chair for the rest of me days! But ye know me—I wasn't givin' up without a fight, so I made an effort to pull meself together. ‘Reason it out, Colin, ye dumb ox,' I told meself. ‘Yer mental operating system has crashed, so use yer brain and troubleshoot it like ye've been taught.'

“And then yer man had a brain flash: These aren't unicorns, fer St. Patrick's sake! It's Castell bloody Cyfareddol havin' some fun, that's all. The decorating committee probably leased a herd of costumed ponies from a circus and let 'em loose in the woods for effect. Another piece of whimsy to add to the carnival atmosphere.”

“That makes sense,” I agreed, while thinking,
If only it were that simple.

“It does make sense.” He angled his body back toward the water and looked at me. “In fact, I'd have no trouble at all acceptin' that explanation, if it weren't for what happened next.”

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
The waves crashed and retreated. They seemed to be offering explanations of their own, but in a language I couldn't understand. Colin went on. “So, just as I'm convincin' meself that I've stumbled upon some poor circus ponies spray-painted silver and wearing illuminated headgear, one of the creatures trotted up to me. It looked me straight in the eye.”

“Oh my God—did it say something?” I blurted.

“A talkin' horse? Even I'm not that daft, darlin'!” He laughed at his own joke. “But it did do a bit of a dance, ye could call it, stompin' its hooves and wavin' its tail. Then it pointed down at the dirt with its horn before runnin' off. Apparently there was somethin' on the ground it wanted me to see.” He took out his cell phone. “Here, ye can read it yerself.”

He flipped the phone open and pressed a few buttons. Then he showed me the screen.

The photo was small, but I could make it out quite clearly. Six words, scratched into the green moss of the forest floor. The letters were sharp and angular—as if they'd been scratched with the tip of a horn:

I didn't know what to say.

Colin put the phone away. “Naturally I tried to get a shot of the beastie and its mates too, but they bolted back into the trees so fast I never had a chance.”

We sat in silence. The sun was almost gone, and the beach felt suddenly cool.

“That's it, then.” Colin shrugged. “I stumbled home like I was fluthered with drink. I've looked at the picture on me phone more times than I can count. Been drivin' the hotel clerks batty askin' if they knew of any ponies in the woods, but they just keep offerin' me ridin' lessons.”

“But you didn't send me that e-mail?” I pressed.

He shook his head. “Why would I? So ye could've written me back sayin', ‘ye've gone nutters, Colin, time for a visit to the happy ward'? Yet somehow ye've come anyway.” He turned to me. “Under mysterious circumstances, to be sure. Do ye have any idea what it all means?”

“I don't know what that ‘save the world' message means,” I said carefully. “As for the unicorns—or whatever they are—there could be any number of explanations. I don't think we have enough information to know.”

“That's a perfectly sane answer, and I agree one hundred percent.” He brushed the sand off his hands. “Let's have a look at this blasted e-mail, then.”

I pulled the folded up paper out of the pocket of my jeans. Colin read it, then read it again.

“See? It's from you.”

“No it's not,” he said, after a minute. “It does sound like me, which is bloody odd, but it's the wrong domain. I'm lovesdeathmetal at Dublin City University. This is from
fff
mail.” He sounded like he'd sprung a leak.

“What's
fff
mail?”

“Well, I guess that's how ye'd pronounce it. It's spelled with a PH, look.”

I read the FROM line:

PHmail? How could I not have noticed that?

“Somebody's hacked yer computer, that's obvious. It's just the who and why to figure out.” Colin looked back at the page, then cocked an eyebrow at me, curious. “It says here I'll pay fer yer plane ticket, but obviously I didn't. How'd ye get here then?” He looked at me sternly. “Mor gan! Do yer parents know where ye are?”

I made a face. “Not exactly.”

“Well, they know ye didn't run out to the corner druggist to buy some sweets, don't they?”

I tried to laugh, but a stab of guilt stopped me. “They know I flew to England.”

“But not that ye came to Wales?”

“No,” I admitted. “Or that I'm with you. They think I'm taking a campus tour of Oxford.” I bit my lip and waited for the reaction I knew was coming.
Five—four—three—two—

“Oxford? Oxford
University
?” Colin hooted in disbelief. “Who'd believe a story like that? I mean, imagine, a perfectly nice person like you wastin' yer time at a snooty, Ivy-covered relic like that medieval pile of bricks! It's an antiquated shrine to the rich and obsolete. It's practically a thousand years old, ye know. It's a miracle the old junk heap is still standin'.”

“They think I'm on a campus tour of Oxford,” I said slowly, “because I'm going to apply there to study mythology after I graduate high school, and the admissions office invited me to take a campus tour. Plane tickets included.”