What I Wore to Save the World

by Maryrose Wood

  The fireflies swirled around me like angry gnats. Did they just like the smell of my shampoo? Or were they trying to tell me Stop, don’t be a wuss, we need your help Morganne—

  “Shut up,” I growled, even though no one was nagging me but my own guilty conscience. The bugs took it personally, though. As one, they zoomed into the air in front of me and formed a perfect rendition of a sticking-out-your-tongue emoticon. Then they turned off their butt-lights and scattered.

  It was a snazzy (if rude) display of aerial pyrotechnics, sure. But, come on—what Epona had asked me to do was so completely out of the question. I mean, I’d never even run for class clown! Now some sparkly pony with a glow stick on its head wanted me to stage a coup and become Queen of the Faeries? How was I supposed to explain that sudden career change to my friends back home in Connecticut? Nope, nope and more nope.

  But I had to admit that the other stuff Epona had said—about the veil between the worlds slipping for good—didn’t sound so hot, either. My whole plan to keep magic-me secret from Colin was just not going to work if Titania gate-crashed the human world and brought her whole faery posse with her.

  Not to mention the threat of a permanent fade-to-black of all magical beings. Including Santa.

  Look at the world as it is. Then imagine how it would be if you refuse your duty. . . . I kept my head down as I walked, careful not to look anywhere but directly in front of my feet. Between the half-magic ambience at Castell Cyfareddol and this business about the veil slipping, I had no intention of making eye contact with any gargoyles—in case they had something to add to the conversation too.

  i held my breath as i tiptoed past the jockey-on-a-seahorse outside the cottage—was that a whispered Giddy-up, Seabiscuit! I heard? Then I opened the front door as silently as I could.

  Now that it was half-light out I found myself wishing for the dark again. I felt much too conspicuous trying to sneak across the living room to the stairs. But Colin still looked thoroughly unconscious on the sofa, and the afghan I’d tucked around him was now partially covering his face. If I could be totally quiet—and was totally lucky—

  One step—two steps—the third step I was extra-careful on, because I knew it tended to creeeeeeeeeak—

  “Colin, me boy! Are ye up?”

  Fek! Grandpap and his superhuman hearing! Nothing to do but dash the rest of the way upstairs and slip under the covers. I listened carefully while keeping myself in pretending-to-be-out-cold position, in case anyone came up, but the sound of slippers scuffing across the floor stopped in the living room.

  Colin’s voice was rough with sleep. “No, I’m not up, Pap. Nor should you be. Go back to bed.”

  “I thought I heard a noise. I thought it was me old girl, comin’ home.”

  “Ye mean Granny?”

  I gulped. Colin’s voice grew softer until I could barely hear. “There there, now, Paps. I think ye’ve been dreamin’ again. Go catch yerself another forty winks and we’ll talk about it later.”

  “Forty winks? All right, if ye say so, lad . . .” Grandpap sounded confused, but I heard him shuffle back to the bedroom.

  Poor Grandpap! I felt awful about disturbing him. Maybe he would go back to sleep and forget all about it.

  But what about Colin? Would he go back to sleep too? Or was dawn what he meant by bright and early?

  I heard footsteps. Bathroom door closing. Various plumbing-related flushes and gurgles.

  More footsteps, this time coming up the stairs. Step, step, creeeeeak, step, step-step—

  Then a tap-tap-tap on the door.

  “Hey, Mor. Ready to rise and shine?”

  “Nnnnn.”

  “Sun’s up. We said bright and early.”

  “Nnnnnnnnnnnn.” Truly, it was an Oscar-worthy performance.

  “Did ye get a good night’s sleep?”

  “Five more minutes,” I mumbled, quite convincingly. I’d had lots of practice during the school year, of course.

  “All right, make it ten.” I could hear the fond smile in his voice. Also the impatience. “But then it’s time for breakfast. And hunting for clues.”

  considering that i was a severely sleep-deprived person who’d stayed up half the night arguing with unicorns, ten minutes was a dangerous amount of time to be left lying in a warm bed with my eyes closed, cozy blankets drawn over me and a soft pillow underneath my head.

  Someplace between minutes six and seven I sank into a deep, exhausted sleep, the kind where your limbs go heavy as lead and no power in this realm or any other can make you move a muscle.

  In my sleep I smelled bacon frying, but that was part of the dream I was having. It was one of those dreams that I knew was ridiculous even while I was in it: There was a unicorn, poking at a frying pan full of nice crispy bacon using the end of its horn. I was starving but the unicorn wouldn’t let me have any food.

  “Whyyyyyyyyyy didn’t you do any extra-curricular activities?” it whinnied. “If only you’d run for some kind of office! Treasurer! Secretary! Queen, even!” The unicorn speared a strip of particularly crisp-looking bacon on its horn but kept it dangling just out of my reach. “But nooooooooooo! I guess you couldn’t doooooooo that!”

  “It’s not that I couldn’t,” I mumbled in my dream. “It’s that I didn’t . . .”

  “Didn’t what? Didn’t sleep well? Could’ve fooled me, darlin’. I’ve been shakin’ ye for two minutes already.”

  What a nice voice, with its sexy Irish accent. It seemed familiar, but at that moment I didn’t know where I was or whether I was awake or asleep; and if I was asleep, whether it had been ten minutes or ten hours since I’d conked out.

  “Wake up now, love. Time fer breakfast.”

  With effort, my brain navigated an agonizing, zigzag path back toward consciousness. Toward Colin. Toward the real, wide-awake, human world. The world where unicorns didn’t exist except in stories, and where Santa Claus and the tooth fairy would always be cherished figures of childhood make-believe.

  The nice, familiar world that I—and I alone—was supposed to save.

  “C’mon downstairs, love.” I peeled my eyes open and saw Colin’s face slowly coming into focus. “I’ve got some bacon fryin’ up in the kitchen. Smells delicious, doesn’t it?”

  by the time i made it downstairs colin was lifting the last strip of bacon from the pan and transferring it to a paper towel-lined plate. While he’d cooked I’d endured a fast and brutal, too-cold-on-purpose shower to wake me up. I still felt like I’d pulled two all-nighters in a row, but the shower helped, and I figured I could fake my way through the day with some effort. It’ll be just like finals week, I told myself as I put on my Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head band T-shirt and a pair of old jeans. All it takes is coffee and determination .

  Colin, on the other hand, was so full of energy he seemed practically hyper. The brisk and efficient way he whipped up breakfast was like something out of a cable cooking show, but at the same time he was trying to be quiet because Grandpap was still in bed. The clock on the kitchen wall read six forty-five.

  “I don’t usually do too much food prep on vacation, but none of the local eateries’ll be open this early.” He grabbed another paper towel from the roll and gave the bacon strips an extra blotting. “Later on we can grab some lunch at the pub. Assuming the world’s been saved by then, o’ course.”

  I leaned against the kitchen doorway, watching him. I had to admit, he’d make a pretty sexy consort to the Queen of the Faeries. “It’s nice to see you cook. Pretty cute, in fact.”

  “Not as cute as you sleepin’. Hey, love the shirt. Reminds me of the day we first met, back when your hair was all sheared off. Fine band too, if ye’re in the mood fer cutesy electronica dance-pop, though it’s all a bit eighties fer my taste.”

  I ignored the dig at my current favorite band. “I remember the day we met too,” I said coyly. “It was in the airport at Shannon. I thought you were totally gorgeous and kind of obnoxious.”

 
He grinned. “And I thought ye were pretty as a picture and bald as an egg. Speakin’ o’ which: scrambled or fried?”

  “Scrambled.”

  “Comin’ right up.” He cracked a couple of eggs in a bowl. I heard birds twittering outside the cottage. How incredibly normal everything seemed. How amazingly wonderful “normal” was, I realized. And how fragile.

  “Ye want salt, pepper?”

  “I’ll get it. Is there any ketchup?”

  “In the fridge.”

  I had to squeeze right by him to get to the refrigerator door. Impulsively I put my arms around his waist.

  “Hey,” I said, giving a quick hug.

  “Hey hey,” he said, sounding nice and flirty.

  Just my luck, I thought. Our chaperone’s asleep, and we’re going to waste the morning searching for clues that I already know don’t exist.

  I grabbed the ketchup from the fridge and sidestepped back out of the kitchen. Once I was out of the way, Colin took two warmed plates out of the oven and loaded them with eggs and bacon. Then we sat down at the tiny white-topped kitchen table to eat.

  Colin usually gobbled his food like it was a race to the finish, but now he was eating slowly, one mouthful at a time.

  “Mmm, this is so good,” I said, to keep the conversation in a safe, food-related zone. “You have mad cooking skills.”

  “Glad ye like it. I must say it’s a lovely time of day to be up. I could get used to this rising-with-the-roosters business.” He paused to wipe his lips. “Too bad Granny and Grandpap sold off the farm. I miss it, now that it’s gone. I might’ve taken a shine to that life. I’m a simple bloke at heart, ye know. Hey, luv—why are ye lookin’ at me like that?”

  Would it really be so bad if Queen Titania got her way? a dark, seductive voice inside me whispered. Then everyone would know about the faery realm, including Colin. It wouldn’t be your secret to keep anymore. Problem solved.

  “Earth to Morgan! Why the long face?” Colin tapped his fork on the edge of my plate to get my attention. “If it’s not directly related to national security ye should let me in on it.”

  “I’m just out of it.” I moved my food around on the plate. “Jet lag, probably. If I were a superhero my name would be SuperSnoozer.”

  “SuperSleeptalker, more like it. What were ye dreamin’ about this mornin’?”

  What had he heard? “Something . . . silly,” I said hastily.

  Come on, tell him, it won’t be that hard: “Colin, magic is real and I’m a half-goddess, the faeries are about to take over the world but it’s no big deal, could you pass the ketchup please?”

  “Too silly to tell? Never mind then, maybe it’s private.”

  Tell him tell him tell him tell him—

  “Colin,” I started, then stopped. “There is something I want to—it’s kind of hard to—could I have the ketchup please?”

  He shoved his last bit of bacon in his mouth and handed me the ketchup. “Here ye go. Hey, speakin’ of national security, I’ve been keepin’ a bit of a secret meself.”

  I didn’t know whether to be scared or excited. “It’s not something bad, is it?”

  Colin’s eyebrows wiggled comically. “That depends on yer reaction, I suppose. Hang on a sec.” He pushed his chair back from the table, stood up and left the room briefly. When he came back he was holding a small box.

  “Oh my God.” My heart was pounding. “Colin—what the fek—”

  “Watch yer Irish, now. Especially in front of me granny’s locket.”

  He opened the box. Inside was an absolutely beautiful heart-shaped locket on a thin gold chain. At the sight of it my eyes filled with tears.

  Colin cleared his throat. “I want to make somethin’ perfectly clear, Morgan Rawlinson. This is no ordinary bauble yer gazin’ at.”

  “It certainly isn’t.” My voice felt stuck. “Colin, it’s gorgeous. I don’t know what to—”

  “Hush, woman! I did a fair bit o’ thinkin’ last night, while ye were out havin’ architecture lessons. Now I’ve got a few things to say to ye, and if ye get me all flustered I’ll ferget me lines.” He looked at me earnestly. The intense blue of his eyes seemed even more vivid than usual. “Mor gan, I hope ye have some idea of what ye mean to me. I mean, I’m kind of a stupid bloke most of the time, makin’ wisecracks and all. But I swear to ye, I’m not jokin’ now.”

  He sounded so open and full of love—it made my own tangle of unspoken truths seem that much more pathetic by comparison.

  “It’s a year now since we met, can ye believe it? And I know it’s been hard to really know what we are to each other, what with you livin’ in all yer Connecticut splendor and me toilin’ away at me schoolwork in Dublin. But I thought, since the fates have seen fit to drop us on the same side of the ocean for a change—well, I’d be a right eejit not to take advantage of the chance to make me feelings plain.”

  A big pathetic tear was now snowboarding down my cheek. I wish I could say it was a tear of pure happiness, but it wasn’t. It was mixed up with my guilt over all that I’d never told Colin about my true self, and my growing fear that whatever was about to happen in this fragile world we thought of as reality would drive us apart for good.

  But Colin drew his own conclusions. He smiled tenderly and wiped the tear away with his fingertip. “Be my girl, luv. That’s all I’m askin’ fer right now. We can sort out the details later. If ye’ll have me, o’ course! Though how ye could refuse any bloke capable of whippin’ up a fine Irish breakfast at such an ungodly hour is beyond me.”

  “Colin . . .” But this was not an occasion for words. It was too easy to lie with words. I threw myself at him so fast I nearly knocked over the table. He caught me and held me tight. We stood together in the tiny kitchen, arms wrapped around each other.

  “Ye like it, then?” His breath was warm, right next to my ear.

  “I do.” Whoops. I hadn’t really been planning to use those two particular words, but out they slipped.

  Be my girl . . . Part of me felt as full of love and happiness as I’d ever been in my whole life. Me and Colin, together at last—officially, with a locket and everything. It was a dream come true. For half of me, at least.

  But what about the other half? The goddess-half that knew the secret I was still keeping, and the urgent duty I was doing my best to ignore? Surely that wasn’t a very important part? Not compared to that delicious-milk-shake-of-happiness feeling inside me, with the magic rainbows and glitter hearts, the pretty unicorns sprouting flowers and dancing, dancing—

  Game over. I squeezed my eyes shut and held Colin so fiercely it was as if someone was trying to tear him away. This is what I want, and nothing is going to screw it up. I am resigning my half-goddess gig as of now. If the unicorns are so freakin’ worried about Titania, let them deal with her.

  “If ye hold me any tighter ye’ll be breakin’ a rib, there, sweetheart,” Colin murmured in my ear.

  “Sorry.” I loosened my grip and didn’t say anything more. But inside my head I made my very own Public Service Announcement. I hoped it was coming through loud and clear: Attention, Faery Folk! Regarding Queen Titania, I have three words and three words only: Not. My. Problem.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Damn, and just when I was goin’ to kiss ye. Well, ye know what they say: No Hallmark moment goes unpunished.” Colin disentangled himself from my clinging and went to the door. “Who could it be, callin’ at the crack of dawn? The milkman lookin’ fer a tip, maybe?”

  If only. But it was Mr. McAlister, dressed in old-fashioned tennis whites, a college letter sweater (with a big O, of course) and a tweed cap. It was like he’d just climbed out of his Model T. The sight of him in the doorway, leaning on his wooden-handled tennis racquet, made my milk-shake-of-happiness feeling curdle into cottage cheese.

  We’re all counting on you, Morganne. . . .

  “Ye’re up awfully early, Mr. McAlister,” Colin said with automatic hospitality. “Care for some ras
hers and eggs?”

  “At my age a man doesn’t need much sleep. No sense wasting the time you have left snoring into a pillow.” He gave me a wink to underscore the “at my age” bit. Then he gestured with his racquet. “Your invitation to breakfast is very generous, but I must decline. I have a tennis match scheduled for later, with a noted collector of architectural antiquities, no less! I’ve booked some practice time this morning to brush up on my serve. My sole purpose in stopping by is to give Miss Rawlinson a message.”

  Colin took a step back from the door so Mr. McAlister and I could see each other more clearly.

  “A message?” It came out like a frightened squeak. “For me?”

  “Normally I would have waited until a more civilized hour to deliver it, but the marvelous culinary aromas wafting on the breeze from your cottage to mine indicated that you were already up. In any case, I thought you’d prefer to receive it promptly.”

  All of a sudden the locket around my neck felt like it was burning a heart-shaped hole in my skin. I tried not to look as full of dread as I felt. “What is it?”

  “It’s a very simple message, so I do hope I get it right.” Mr. McAlister took off his tweed cap and cleared his throat. “ ‘Your mother called.’ ”

  fourteen

  “my mother?” i stared at him, hard. the question which one? was burning in my eyes. Had his research at “the Bod” included getting the scoop about my all-too-special relationship with Queen Titania?

  “Yes, she left a message on my phone; she said her name was . . . hmm, let me think for a moment . . .”

  “Helen!” I felt like the stooge in the audience feeding answers to a fake psychic.

  “Helen, of course! She must have retrieved the number when you used the oPhone to leave her a message. These gadgets today! Simply astonishing. In my day, we had to ask the operator—”

  I gave Mr. McAlister a major death glare, thinking, With all due respect, sir, shut up. This is not the time to let Colin know how ancient you are.

  He stopped himself short with a nervous laugh. “But of course, in my day all kinds of things were different. Perhaps we ought to leave it at that. What a lovely necklace, dear. Is it new?”