All the King's Horses

by Laura C Stevenson

  I sighed and looked around the classroom, hoping the other kids were finished so I wouldn’t have to think any more, but they were still bending over their workbooks – all except Tiffany, the girl at the desk across the aisle. She was the only girl in the class that looked like the no-perm, no-lipstick, no-fainting-over-Elvis Presley friends I’d had at Maple Street School, so I’d started sitting by her on the bus. But she was really shy; it had taken ten days for her even to say ‘hi’, and she still stared out the window instead of talking. She was staring out the window now, for that matter, smiling to herself the way you do when you’re daydreaming after your work is done. Only her work wasn’t done; her workbook was lying on her desk, and the checkmarks on it stopped halfway down the first page. Just then, Miss Turner, the teacher, walked our way, and Tiffany jerked out of her dream and started filling in the empty boxes, making a little pattern down the page. I had never seen someone fill in the answers without looking at the questions before, and I was so interested that I forgot all about Miss Turner until she tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Sarah, have you finished already?’ she whispered.

  I didn’t say I’d finished half an hour ago. I just nodded.

  She looked over my answers, nodded, then wrote neatly in the margin, ‘I forgot to send the attendance sheet down to the office this morning. Could you take it for me?’

  I nodded and slipped out the door. It was two flights down to the office from our room, really different from Maple Street School, which had been all on one floor. The classrooms were different, too; instead of having moveable desks in clusters and cheerful bulletin boards, they had desks and chairs that were bolted to the floor in rows and huge windows with yellow shades. I was still trying to decide whether it was the classrooms that made the teachers look so worn out or the teachers who made the classrooms look so dingy, when I got to the office.

  ‘I have Miss Turner’s attendance sheet,’ I said to the secretary. ‘Do I give it to you?’

  ‘Sure, hon,’ she said, not looking at me as she reached for it.

  I was just starting back, when the door to the principal’s office opened and Colin came out with Mr Beeker. Colin didn’t look very glad to see me.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked. ‘Did Mom call?’ She would only call if something was really wrong.

  ‘’Course not,’ he muttered.

  ‘Then what—?’

  ‘Sarah,’ said Mr Beeker, ‘would you come and talk to me, please?’

  When a principal says that, you really don’t have much of a choice, so I went into his office. He sat down on the edge of his desk, which meant he was going to try to be friendly.

  ‘Did your mother get the two notes I’ve sent home about your brother?’ he said.

  ‘About Colin?’ I said blankly.

  ‘That’s right. I asked your mother to make an appointment with me, but she hasn’t. I called several times, but nobody answered.’

  Nobody answered because Grandpa had begun to pick up the phone and shout into it when it rang, so we left it unplugged unless we made a call out. But I couldn’t tell Mr Beeker that, and besides, explaining wouldn’t have helped me find out what was going on, which was what I had to do.

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve had so much trouble,’ I said. ‘If you’d like to send a note home with me, I’ll take it.’

  ‘That’s what I was going to ask you,’ he said, looking relieved. ‘But I thought maybe …’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I said with my nicest smile. ‘Glad to help.’

  ‘I’ll bring it up this afternoon, then.’ He stood up and opened the door for me.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, and hurried back up the dusty steps, feeling I had handled the thing pretty well.

  But I didn’t feel so great when I read the letter on the way home, which I could easily do because Colin had started sitting in the back of the bus with a bunch of boys whose hair was greased back into duck tails. I guess he thought they were cool, or something.

  Dear Mrs Madison:

  I am sorry to report that your son’s behaviour has been consistently disruptive since enrolment in Frederick J. Wheelock School this October. We have consulted the school social worker, and it is his opinion that Colin is disturbing the classroom environment due to stress in his home situation. Colin’s teacher, Mr Stegeth, and I would like to arrange a meeting to discuss that possibility with you. Please contact me at your earliest convenience

  Yours truly,

  James Beeker, Principal

  I looked out the bus window, watching the gas stations and used-car lots slide by, and wondering what I should do. Obviously, I wasn’t going to show the note to Mom; that would be squealing, and we never squeal on each other. Besides, Mom was upset enough about Grandpa without having to think the way he was had any effect on us. But what if the social worker was right?

  Of course, he probably wasn’t; the social worker at Maple Street School talked about ‘home situations’ when any moron could have told him kids acted up because they were bored. Especially Colin. He hated being bored, and it made him really fresh, which was why Maple Street School had skipped him. But at Wheelock – heck, even if they skipped him into my grade, it wouldn’t help; he knew the stuff we were studying as well as I did. Of course, he should know better than to act up, but … the boys in the back of the bus laughed so loudly that the driver had to tell them to shut up.

  I bit my lip and turned to Tiffany. For a change, she was looking at me. What a break. ‘Tiffany, you know those boys who got kicked out of class today for acting up?’

  Tiffany smiled. (Tiffany always smiled when you talked to her, but it was the kind of nervous smile that made you think she wanted you to like her, not a regular smile.) ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did they get sent to the principal’s office for the whole day?’

  ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘There’s a special detention room for people who smoke or mouth off or leave class without a pass, or don’t do their work.’

  ‘What happens to them? Do they just sit there?’

  ‘They work with Miss Fitzgerald,’ she said. ‘At least, they’re supposed to. But she’s …’ She stopped and smiled again.

  I began to feel sick. ‘Not very good?’

  ‘Well, she’s awfully busy.’ Her smile suddenly turned into a real one. ‘But there’s Mr Crewes. He’s one of the fifth-grade teachers, but usually he spends his coffee break in the detention room, helping out. He’s great. Even the boys in the detention room like him.’

  I was going to ask her how she knew that, but then I realized there was only one way she could, and I blushed. Luckily, the bus stopped at our stop, and Colin and I got off.

  ‘What do you have there?’ he asked suspiciously as I stuffed the letter in my pocket.

  ‘Just some dumb note about preparing for junior high,’ I said.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, and he started up the hill, which wasn’t like him at all – I’d been expecting cross-examination. Something about the way he walked let on that he was miserable but trying to cover it up, and I suddenly realized he’d been walking that way quite a bit lately. So I thought again about that social worker … and about Colin’s changeling theory, which might just mean he was upset. And about the trucks on Route 495. ‘Look,’ I said, stopping at the top of the driveway. ‘About Grandpa. I really don’t think we should risk—’

  Before I could finish, Mom burst out the side door. When she saw us, she tried to act as if everything was all right, but it obviously wasn’t. ‘Did you two see Grandpa when you crossed the tracks?’

  Colin and I looked at each other. ‘No.’

  Mom reached back through the door for her jacket. ‘I was washing my hands, and all of a sudden, he wasn’t there,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I wasted a lot of time looking around upstairs, because he usually doesn’t try to go out at this time of day.’

  Colin tossed his backpack into the house. ‘Why don’t you go to the warehouses and see if any of those guys have seen him? We’ll go down t
o the river.’

  Mom nodded and hurried down the road. Colin and I waited to make sure she wasn’t going to look back; then we ran towards the cloverleaf.

  WE GOT TO the entrance ramp in record time, but when we climbed up on the dead car to look around, we couldn’t see anybody.

  ‘Rats!’ said Colin. ‘We missed them!’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t come this way. I was just starting to say …’

  ‘Why else would he have escaped?’ said Colin, jumping off the car.

  I jumped off too, and we climbed over the guard rails, but there was nothing in the place where Grandpa had been standing the day before. ‘See?’ I said. ‘There’s no sign he came here.’

  ‘There are signs and signs.’

  I looked at Colin. ‘Did you say that?’

  But he was staring at something behind me. When I turned around, I stared too. The man standing next to the wrecked refrigerator wasn’t at all like the Little People we’d seen the day before, but you could tell he was one of them. He was tall, and he was dressed in a long, hooded black robe. What I could see of his hair was grey, but his beard was long and white, and his face looked thousands of years old. When he stepped towards us through the plastic bags and newspapers on the ground, though, he didn’t walk like an old man. ‘Greetings, Children of Lugh,’ he said, holding out his hands. ‘I am Cathbad, and I have come to meet you.’

  We looked at each other. He seemed to know why, because he smiled an ancient smile. ‘You may speak without fear,’ he said. ‘You are under Protection.’

  I knew Colin was going to ask, right off, what Protection was, so I nudged him and dropped the best curtsey I could manage. He took the cue and bowed. Grandpa always said terrible things happened to children who were impolite to people from the Otherworld.

  Cathbad bowed so gracefully that I was ashamed. ‘Tell me – what brings you here?’

  The real question, of course, was what had brought him there, but something about him made that impossible to ask. ‘Um … we live just over the hill,’ I whispered.

  He looked at me, and I shivered; his eyes were as deep and grey as a winter ocean, and his smile seemed to come from the end of time. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. But then I looked around.

  If we were still in the cloverleaf, it had gotten much bigger. I couldn’t hear any trucks, and all I could see was a field sloping downhill to the river. The grass was very green, mixed with red and yellow flowers I’d never seen before. Along the banks of the river, big trees hung over the water, and they were covered with leaves, not bare the way they should have been in November. It was pretty, but I couldn’t help thinking of the stories Grandpa told about people who came home after a night of dancing with faeries, only to find they had been gone for a hundred years. They turned to dust the minute they took a step. ‘Can … can we get home?’ I whispered.

  ‘Hush, dumbbell,’ hissed Colin. ‘We don’t want to go home! If we’re where I think we are, this is our big chance to get Grandpa back.’

  Cathbad turned to him. ‘I advise you not to talk to your sister like that,’ he said. ‘You are only in the Outskirts of the Otherworld, but you would be wise to adopt its manners.’

  Colin isn’t that easy to shut up. ‘What are the outskirts of the Otherworld?’

  Cathbad sighed. ‘I forget how much has been lost in your world,’ he said, ‘even to the few mortals who are fit to educate the young. Listen well, then. We – the Faeries, or the Faer Folk, as some call us – used to be gods who walked the earth. There were many of us: Manannan, who ruled the sea, Lugh, who ruled the sun, and many others as well. But long years ago, the Sons of Mil, wicked, unbelieving men, drove us from our lands, and we retreated to Faerie.’ He glanced at us to be sure we were following, and we both nodded. ‘You must not think of Faerie as a place, or at least what you call a place. There are parts of it everywhere, but none of them are in your world; they merely touch it, as they touch other worlds, here and there. And where Faerie touches other worlds, we can go back and forth. For centuries of mortal time, long before men made the wide roads with the strange names you give them, the spot where I met you has been such a place. Those who know the Faer Folk call it a faery ring.’

  ‘A faery ring!’ I said. ‘That doesn’t make … I mean … we know there’ve been faery rings in Ireland for centuries, but we’re here, in Massachusetts – or at least we were before we came to the … umm … Outskirts. And, see, Massachusetts belonged to the Indians centuries ago, and Indians didn’t believe in faeries.’ I gulped. ‘Did they?’

  ‘No,’ said Cathbad, with one of his strange smiles. ‘But a Way is a Way to all who know it. In the days of the great trees, Indians called upon their spirits in that place. In the days of the mills and iron roads, people pining for the Old Country they’d had to leave because of the Great Hunger saw it, recognized its power, and called upon us.’

  ‘And still do, sometimes,’ said a laughing voice behind us. Turning, we saw a man about Colin’s size, sitting on a boulder I was sure hadn’t been there a few moments ago. He was wearing red breeches and a leather tunic, and he was smiling in a way I didn’t quite trust. ‘That’s what saved the Ring, though Cathbad’s too grand to tell you.’

  Cathbad gave him the kind of look grown-ups give people they don’t really get along with. ‘It was luck alone that saved the Ring,’ he said gravely.

  ‘In a pig’s eye!’ said the other faerie. ‘Listen, little ones, and I’ll tell you the tale. A troop of men came with big machines and started digging near the Ring, and we thought it was lost for sure. But one day, the head engineer walked a little way across the wounded earth and stepped into the Ring, which, of course, meant we could make him do whatever we chose. I was for making him route the road into the river, or for making the whole crew run mad, but the others said, No, those days were over. All we could do now, things being as they were, was make the engineer design a cloverleaf around our Ring, and then make it difficult for his workers to build it.’ He settled himself more comfortably on the rock and crossed his pointed feet. ‘Kept us busy for a year, as mortals count time. We drained the gasoline out of their tractors. We moved the white wands they planted to mark the roadbed. The fiery ones among us – the drakes and the will-o-the-wisps – circled around them on winter afternoons, and they ran away, screaming about creatures from outer space. We thought we’d won, but then …’ He sighed. ‘One of the bosses came to look things over, and I’ll be blessed if he didn’t know a Ring when he saw one. “If things keep going wrong, tell me, and we’ll dynamite spots there, there, and there,” he said, pointing to three places around the edges of the Ring. That night, midnight, he came back alone and left a dish of milk at each of those places, looking neither right nor left and careful not to step in the Ring. Left with nary a glance over his shoulder. We took the milk – and the hint with it – and let them finish.’ He jumped off the boulder and shook hands with us. ‘Mongan’s the name.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Colin, and his smile told me he really was. Oh, great. Kid In Trouble At School Meets Faery Prankster.

  I looked at Cathbad. ‘This is a beautiful place, sir, and it’s really … um … great talking to you, but we have to get home. Our grandfather is lost, and—’

  ‘—Your grandfather,’ said Mongan warmly. ‘Now there’s a fine mortal if ever I’ve—’

  Cathbad cut him off with a glance that would have knocked anybody else flat. Then he turned to me. ‘You may indeed go home,’ he said. ‘And therein, you are fortunate. Generally, those who have seen us in our true form must stay in the Otherworld for ever. But the Protection you have been granted enables you to go back and forth between worlds, just as we do.’

  Colin leaned towards me. ‘What the heck do you suppose we did?’ he whispered.

  I put my finger on my lips. If Cathbad was going to send us home, the last thing I wanted was to slow him down by asking about details.

  ‘There are Rule
s in the Otherworld, however,’ added Cathbad. ‘And they grant the privilege of continuous visits under Protection only to those who have a mission.’ His grey eyes locked onto ours. ‘There is always a chance that mortals may stumble upon powers greater than they understand. The Rules allow such mortals to go and return once, but they can never come again.’

  ‘But if we have a mission,’ asked Colin, ‘what then?’

  ‘Then,’ said Cathbad gravely, ‘you may travel back and forth between worlds as many times as it takes you to fulfil your mission. And, furthermore, the Sidhe and all the lesser faeries of the Otherworld must do all that is in their power to help you accomplish it.’

  Colin looked at me, and his lips said ‘Grandpa.’ I nodded, but when I turned to Cathbad, I realized all over again how grand he was, and how little we were – and I remembered how wicked faeries were about giving changelings back. I shivered again, swallowing over a dry place in my throat. ‘We do have a mission,’ I croaked.

  ‘Right,’ said Colin, in a voice as dry as mine. ‘It’s Grandpa. The real Grandpa.’ He took my hand and held it hard while he finished. ‘We want him back. So we need you to take us to where he is.’

  ‘Please,’ I added. ‘If you’d be so kind.’

  Mongan whistled.

  ‘Peace,’ said Cathbad. ‘They don’t know what they’re asking.’

  ‘We do, too!’ said Colin. ‘And it’s the only thing we want, right, Sarah?’

  ‘Right,’ I said firmly. ‘No deep secrets, no magical powers – just Grandpa.’

  Mongan raised an eyebrow at Cathbad. ‘Has it ever been done?’

  ‘Not willingly,’ said Cathbad. ‘And never by the young.’

  ‘Please don’t say that!’ said Colin. ‘Everybody says we’re too young to understand things, and it’s not true! If you think we’re too young or too chicken to get Grandpa back, your Protection is just like everybody else’s – it saves you the trouble of taking us seriously!’