Why I Let My Hair Grow Out (22 page)

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 slow 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.

There was so much to say, but everything was beginning to blur around the edges. “Good-bye!” I called, as Fergus picked me up again. My long hair whirled like streamers, making golden-red circles around us as we turned. “Don't wait for me, okay? Have a good life. I don't know when I'll be b—”

twenty-one

Cornflower-blue eyes in a freshly-shaven face, magic lips curved into a smile that was so very familiar.

“Colin!” I threw my arms around his neck and started to cry.

“There, there now, Mor! What's burst the plumbing all of a sudden?”

The clean aftershave smell of a modern man was like cat-nip. I buried my face in Colin's neck and made a wish that I could hide there forever.

I was back. I was Morgan. My hair was gone and I was in a strange bed, wearing a man's sweatshirt and tucked under two layers of twenty-first-century thermal polyester fleece blankets. I was freezing and my teeth were chattering.

And Colin was sitting on the edge of the bed, warm and damp and naked except for a towel, which he was finding hard to keep wrapped around his waist with me hanging on to him.

“Easy, there,” he said, grabbing the towel as it nearly slipped off. “Let me at least get me Y-fronts on so we can converse like civilized people, eh?”

Forever in the neck plan canceled, for now. I let go of Colin and looked around. We were in a small Ye Olde Quaint Irish Inn-type bedroom that—as far as I knew—I'd never seen before.

“This whole time I've been in the shower and you're still shivering!” Colin said, sounding alarmed. “I'm bringing you some soup and that's that. You stay here and do as you're told. I shouldna have let you stay in the water so long; you've caught a chill right to the bone. And then driving back in your wet clothes, tsk! What a madcap pair we are, eh?” He held his towel on with one hand and rummaged through the bureau drawer with the other.

“If Patty finds you here in my room, yer man'll be looking for work by morning,” he said, tossing his clothes everywhere. “But you were shivering and shaking and mumbling the whole drive back from the beach. I didn't want to leave you alone till you started acting sensible. How are you feeling now?”

We just got back from the beach?
Brand new tears started running down my cheeks. Was I happy? Sad? Feelings are not so easy to label sometimes.

“What's the matter, Mor? Are you all right?” He looked so sweet and unself-conscious, standing there in his bare feet. “You're not upset about what happened tonight, are ye? We had a bit of a moment there, you and me, but all's well now; I was never really mad at ye, how could I be. . . .”

We just got back from the beach.
My Long-ago adventure had taken, what? An hour? Two? The time-space continuum works in strange and mysterious ways.

“I got scared.” I sniffed, knowing he wouldn't understand. “That I was gone too long.”

He grinned. “Well, ye did stay underwater long enough to give your ol' pal Colin the devil's own scare! How was I to know ye've got lungs of iron?”

He prattled on about Jacques Cousteau and some woman who'd swum the Irish Sea, but I felt more like the guy in the Christmas movie who helps the angel get his wings. Or the old guy in the other Christmas movie who's stingy and mean and gets his ass whipped by a bunch of ghosts, but still wakes up in time to buy a Christmas turkey for his gimpy kid-friend, Tiny Tim.

Goddess bless us, every one.
And speaking of gimpy, Colin was becoming a hilarious sight standing there in a towel, clutching a pair of tighty-whities and staring at me like I was the one who looked like a nut.

“What an expression ye've got on your mug! What on earth are you brooding about, lass?”

“Christmas,” I said, laughing and crying harder. I wiped my nose on the back of my hand, and it never once occurred to me that he would think I was gross. “I'm glad I didn't miss it.”

“It's July, Morgan,” he said patiently, searching for a matching sock. “Nobody's missing Christmas at the moment.”

“It's just that I've been homesick,” I said, trying to explain.

“For your ma and da?”

“No.” I shook my head. “For here.”

“Ah,” he said. He walked over and sat on the bed next to me again. “That I understand. But you'll be back, never fear.” Colin wrapped me tighter in the blankets, speaking softly in my ear. “Ireland is like that for some people—it gets in your blood and you can't stay away for long. Now keep still till I come back with the soup.”

“You should put some clothes on first,” I said.

“Right-o.” He grabbed a pair of pants and ran back into the bathroom.

I rubbed my head. It felt so weird not having any hair. But it would grow back.

 
me. in my padded bike shorts, standing On a huge stone slab with Lucia and Carrie.

Me, Heidi, Johannes, Sophie and Derek, in a giggling human pyramid near the door of an old stone castle.

Me, again, upside down, holding my bike and scowling at the camera as a cute little sheep waved its feet in the air.

“Whoops! Slide's in cockeyed, hold on.” Patty took the slide out and squinted at it in the light.

“I keep telling you, a digital camera and a laptop running PowerPoint would do a much better job of this, Patty,” Colin grumbled.

“You and your techno gadgets!” she scolded amiably, as she popped the slide back in the carousel.

All better now—I was standing on the ground, grinning, and the sheep was sniffing at my feet.

I hadn't missed Christmas, and I hadn't missed the bike tour either. By the time the week was over it was like I'd gotten two Irish vacations for the price of one. What a bargain! My dad would be pleased, if he ever knew.

The photos Patty showed us after dinner on our last night together made it easy to remember all that had happened. This was the vacation I'd talk about when I got home and people asked me about my summer.

I had a great time in Ireland,
I'd say.
I stood on a stone slab. I visited a castle.

And if I closed my eyes, I could see other pictures as well:

Me, in long hair and a cream-colored princess dress, swimming after a mermaid to the bottom of the sea.

Me, dancing to the music of a harp and a flute and a drum, as Fergus laughs and throws me back in a low tango dip.

Me, talking to a horse; me, arguing with a queen; me, racing down a magic field holding a hurley stick while thousands of faeries looked on.

Which were more true? The pictures on the screen or the pictures in my head? I thought of my family photo albums: Did I actually
remember
being that bald baby on the sheepskin, the chubby blond toddler in the frilly dress at the zoo clutching a stuffed penguin, the strawberry-haired girl napping with her infant sister? Or was it the photos I remembered, and my parents' stories about them that I'd heard a million times?

Answer: Who cares? It was me in the pictures and me in the stories, and between them both and my own memories I could put together a pretty good map of where'd I'd been and where I might be going. But who could I tell about my Long-ago adventures? I knew I wouldn't believe me if I told those stories to myself.

“We have a tradition, here at the Emerald Cycle Bike Tour Company,” said Patty, in a tone of jolly warning. “We call it the Emerald Awards, and everybody wins one. They're all in good fun, remember, and we hope you'll be entertained.” Patty took out her inevitable clipboard. “To Heidi:
The Woman of Many Tongues Award,
for her fearless assault on the English language.”