Why I Let My Hair Grow Out

by Maryrose Wood

  No wonder Raph wanted “a change.” If I were Raph, I would have dumped me too.

  The most fun I’ve had on this whole vacation so far was when I was unconscious, I thought. No wonder that dream felt so real. I must have been in a coma or something. This trip sucks, Colin sucks, I suck suck suck. . . .

  “What is that?” I asked, trying to break this awful mood. “That lump on top of the hill?” I pointed in the direction I’d been riding when I fell, at the strangely symmetrical bump in the not-too-distant landscape.

  Colin whipped the van through a three-point turn on the narrow road so hard I thought we’d end up in the ditch again. Now the lump was behind us and I couldn’t see it anymore.

  “They call it a faery mound,” he said, shifting into drive.

  “What?” I couldn’t believe I’d heard him right. “What’s a fae—”

  “Best be quiet and rest. Hospital’s about twenty minutes from here,” he said, cutting me off.

  He sounded very annoyed.

  maybe it Was because colin said the f-word—faery, that is—but as soon as the van started bouncing along the road, I felt like I was on Samhain’s back again, and the whole vivid dream or coma-induced hallucination or whatever it was about me and Fergus and Erin and the enchantments and my long storybook-princess hair came rushing back into my head.

  “I speak now of Cúchulainn. . . .” If I listened hard I could still hear Fergus’s voice. If I inhaled deeply I could smell the nearby animal presence of Samhain.

  “You say something, Mor?” Colin asked.

  “No.” I wanted to shush him so I could hear the voice in my head better. “Greatest of the heroes of Ulster . . .”

  “I’m itching to scold you but I won’t,” Colin said, after a moment. “Never mind that, I will scold you.” Colin drummed his fingers on the wheel as he drove. “Wear your helmet, stay with your buddy, carry the phone, follow the map. What are those?”

  “The safety rules,” I said obediently, but I was still listening: “ The Guard-Dog of our people, the Hound who is fated to save and defend us all . . .”

  “Just a warning, then,” Colin said, drowning out that hypnotic inward voice. “If you don’t follow the safety rules, they’ll pack you up and send you home, never fear. So if that’s what you want, might as well call your ma and da and be done with it. I’ll drive you to the airport tonight. No need to give yourself a concussion just because you’d rather be elsewhere.”

  I thought about what he was saying.

  Did I want to be in Ireland? Not really. Did I want to go home? No way.

  “I don’t know what I want,” I said.

  There was a sign with a hospital symbol by the roadside, and Colin made the turn.

  “Ah, who does, Mor?” he said after a bit, just like we were friends again. “But I’m glad you can tell the truth when you’ve a mind to. Here we are!”

  this hospital Was smaller than the Ones i’d visited at home, and there wasn’t anybody waiting to be seen but me. Otherwise the whole experience of seeing a doctor was completely familiar.

  I’d been to the ER in Connecticut twice. The first time was when I was maybe four and my mother thought I was having an allergic reaction to a bee sting. I wasn’t. It was just that I couldn’t stop crying because I loved bees and I was upset that one had stung me because I thought they were my friends. I was goofy that way when I was little, always chatting with the bugs and flowers and stuff like Tammy still does. Anyway, Mom panicked because she thought I was hyperventilating and she rushed me to the ER. They gave me a lollipop and I think Mom ended up with some Ativan.

  The other time was when I was on the freshman girls’ field hockey team and I twisted my ankle during a game. The whole time I was on crutches the coach had me act as her assistant, making up the team roster and keeping score and all that. I used to like playing field hockey but being forced into a leadership position soured me on the whole game, frankly. I was no “gifted leader of tomorrow,” that’s for sure.

  Other than prescribing more ice for my head, Bactine and Band-Aids for the scrapes and Advil for the headache, the doctor said I was fine. She made the obligatory joke about how nicely you could see the bump on my head because of my buzz cut.

  She also referred to Colin as “your boyfriend” once. He pretended to be insulted because obviously he was my husband; in fact we were coming up on our twenty-fifth anniversary any day now, and it was the power of love and clean living that kept us looking so young. The doctor rolled her eyes.

  “I hope you didn’t come to Ireland for the crack!” she said to me. “If this is the quality of banter you have at your disposal, you must be sorely disappointed!”

  Colin saw the look on my face and hooted with laughter. “Watch your words, Doctor! She’s from the States; now she thinks we’re a bunch of drug addicts! Not ‘crack’ like in America, Mor!” He slapped his knee. “Craic! The pleasure of talking. The fine art of humorous conversation.”

  “It’s the national pastime,” said the doctor, as she taped some gauze over my scraped forearm. “Especially for those with not much else to do.”

  “Well, it’s the cheapest form of entertainment, if you don’t factor in the cost of your drink,” said Colin. “What do you say, Doc? Will she live?”

  “She’ll have a bit of a stiff neck tomorrow, but it’ll pass.” She helped me slide off the examining table. “You might wait a day to get back on the bike. Where was it that you fell, Morgan?”

  I didn’t actually know, but Colin did. “It was on the old hill road,” he said. The pace of his quick banter slowed, as if he were choosing his words deliberately. “The one that goes past Kelly Ryan’s place.”

  The doctor arched an eyebrow. “The road that leads up to the mound? Now I’m not surprised at all. That’s an old faery road, my dear!” she said, turning to me. “Funny things are bound to happen if you go up there alone. Didn’t your ‘husband’ here tell you?”

  “superstitious claptrap!” fumed Colin, as We Once again barreled down a narrow road in a wide van. “Can you believe such nonsense, coming from a doctor no less! An educated person, if you’re convinced by all them bloody diplomas framed on the bloody wall.”

  “But you said yourself that it was a ‘faery mound,’ ” I said. I didn’t understand why he was so angry, but I was glad it wasn’t at me for a change. “What is a faery mound? And what is a faery road?”

  “It’s a bloody mound and a bloody road that was built by the bloody faeries in the days of Long Ago!” he roared, going way too fast for my nerves. “It’s a hill and a road, that’s all it is and all it needs to be. Bloody embarrassing, all this living in faeryland. Makes us Irish sound like a bunch of dim bulbs. Bet you wish you were home again, eh, amongst the twenty-first century people?”

  “Colin?” I felt like I’d never spoken his name aloud before. Maybe I hadn’t. “What are you so pissed off about?”

  He drove on for a minute, letting the van slow to a pace only a bit above the speed limit. “Here’s what it is,” he said, finally. “And mind you don’t repeat any of this, especially to Patty. But I don’t want to work for a bloody bike tour company all my life, you know? I’m saving money to go to school.”

  “Where?”

  “DCU’d be fine with me. That’s Dublin City University,” he explained. “Technology, Mor. The Internet. That’s the economy of the future.” He tapped an unlit cigarette on the dash before sticking it in the lighter. “All over the country, the high-tech companies are starting up and the folks who get in on the ground floor are doing very well for themselves, very well indeed. It’s the new Ireland.”

  I wasn’t sure what any of this had to do with faeries, but Colin wasn’t finished yet.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I love this bloody country, as much as any man can love a country, and that’s the truth. But it’s the new Ireland I want to be a part of. We can’t survive on tourist dollars forever.” The cigarette was lit and he blew smoke out his window. “
No offense to you and yours: Your dollars are much appreciated and ta very much. But why should we get stuck running the Tinker Bell exhibit whilst India and China and everywhere else gets to use their bloody brains to make a living?”

  Colin’s sudden intensity made him seem older, rougher, more warriorlike, perhaps—and that’s when I realized: If you gave Colin a three-days growth of beard and made him live outdoors for a few years, he and Fergus would probably look a lot alike.

  “But you don’t believe in any of that faery stuff,” I said. “So why does it bother you so much?”

  He chuckled. “Because it’s so hard to get away from, I suppose! My grandparents raised me on it, bless ’em. My folks’ll be telling the same stories to my own kids someday.” It was already dusk. Colin flicked on the headlights, which I’d been mentally willing him to do for five minutes already.

  Now that I could see where we were going I stopped clutching the seat so hard. “So your parents believe in faeries too?” I asked. Crazy question. My parents believed in IRAs and good public schools and paying extra for organic chicken. Religion, hardly. Faeries? Please.

  Colin blew the smoke out heavily. “They’re good people, don’t get me wrong. As for what they believe in—they believe you can only be what you already are, and there’s no point in asking life for more. Sittin’ in front of the desk at work and sittin’ in front the telly at home, that’s what those two believe in.”

  “The good people—your parents, I mean—don’t they want you to go to school?”

  “They think I’ve got a perfectly good job already.” He looked at me, which I wished he wouldn’t because he was driving and it did seem possible that another car might eventually come down the road at us, and there was hardly a single lane, never mind two.

  “I’m on me own, is all. It’s up to me, to shit or get off.” He paused. “It’d be nice to have some encouragement, I suppose. But I made it this far without.” Colin swerved neatly around an oncoming tractor, driving almost completely off the road to do so. “How ’bout you, Mor? Where are you going to school?”

  “Connecticut.” I almost blew it right then, but then I remembered, I’d told Colin I was eighteen. Now that we were pals again I wanted him to keep believing it. Just, you know, in case. “I’m starting U-Conn in the fall,” I lied. “University of Connecticut. It’s not far from where I live.”

  He whistled. “That’s a relief! For a minute there I thought you’d say you were going to bloody Yale, and then I’d be embarrassed to speak to you.”

  I cracked up. “Yale! On my grades? No fekkin’ way.”

  We had a good laugh together at that one, and the rest of the ride was one hundred percent craic. But whenever there was a lull in the conversation, I could make out the whisper of Fergus’s voice, crooning stories in my ear.

  ten

  my parents had already called twice by the time i got to my room at Durty Nellie’s, the friskily-named inn we were checked into for the night. As I predicted, Mom was in hysterical my-daughter’s-dying-from-a-bee-sting mode, to the point where Dad did not even want to put her on the phone with me.

  “All I want to know,” he said, with excessive calmness, “is if you want to come home. Yes or no. If you do, I will book you a flight and you’ll be on your way tonight.”

  “The doctor said I was fine,” I said. “Honestly, Dad! I fell off my fekkin’ bike is all.”

  “Morgan!” Oh crap. The language police.

  “Sorry, sorry! It’s just the way people talk here.”

  But I don’t think he heard me because it sounded like there was a bit of a skirmish for the phone on that end.

  “Morgan! It’s Mom. I just want to know. The doctors who checked you at the hospital. Did they seem—competent?” She said it like it was a code word for something so dreadful it couldn’t be spoken. Like: Were they dancing in circles like witch doctors? Did they cover your body with leeches?

  “I’m in Ireland, Mom! It’s a modern country. They have computers and everything.”

  “I understand that.” She sighed, though I knew she was imagining me in the hands of a gibbering exorcist. “I’m just worried that you didn’t get a professional exam.”

  “The doctor was great.” I was glad Mom couldn’t see me rolling my eyes. “She wore a white coat and she had a stethoscope and lots of degrees and everything. I think she even went to medical school.”

  “I can’t tell if you’re teasing me, Morgan.” Mom’s voice was getting shrill. “This is your health we’re talking about. This is serious. This is not a joke.”

  Whenever I try to sound extra serious it just makes me crack up. “I’m not teasing you, Mom,” I insisted, biting my lip. “The doctor was fine.” I was starting to sputter. “She even warned me about the fae—”

  But then I thought: Shut up, Morgan. As deliciously fun as it would be to tell my mother that the doctor believed in faeries, I didn’t want to run the risk of being shipped home to Connecticut right this second. As much as I had not wanted to be here before—for tonight, at least, now that Colin and I were pals again—I was the tiniest bit interested to find out what might happen next.

  “The what? She warned you about the what, Morgan?” I could imagine Mom’s free hand dialing the travel agent on her cell phone while she kept me on the other line, booking me on the next flight home.

  “About the f-f-f-f-f-fact that I might have a stiff neck tomorrow but it was nothing to be alarmed about. She even told me I should definitely finish the bike tour. She said it would be good for me to keep moving so my muscles don’t, you know, get paralyzed or something.” I said it all too fast, which made it sound fake, and of course some of it was. I crossed my fingers that the force of the nonrefundable tour deposit would help sway things in my favor.

  Silence. “So. You don’t want to come home?”

  “No way, Mom! I’m having a great time!”

  Silence.

  “Don’t you believe me?”

  “I don’t know, Morgan. It doesn’t sound like you. I can’t tell if you’re lying or happy.” She paused. “Either way, it doesn’t sound like you.”

  “I’m happy, Mom,” I said. “That’s what’s different.” My voice dripped with conviction. “I’m having fun, that’s all.”

  “Okay,” she said. She sounded tiny on the other end of the phone. “That’s great, honey. Okay. I’m putting your father on.”

  “Morgan! What did you say to your mother?” My dad sounded pissed. What did I do now?

  “Nothing! Why?”

  “I don’t know, but she’s crying.”

  Sheesh. Just because I said I was happy?

  a little Witty banter, a little truth-telling, a long look into Colin’s cornflower-blue eyes—aside from the hallucination-inducing head injury, it’d been a pretty swell afternoon.

  Even the hallucination was fun, really. I hadn’t mentioned it to Colin or the ER doctor because I didn’t want them to think my senses had been so messed up by the head bonk that I needed exploratory brain surgery or something. Still, the memory of Fergus, Erin, Sam and the long-ago, faery-infested place they lived remained strangely vivid in my mind. Strange too what the doctor had said about the “faery road” and the “faery mound.” I wanted to know more, but Colin obviously didn’t like talking about faeryland.

  This was no time to lose focus, though. My put-the-moves-on-Colin plan was back in action, and I had to work fast since I’d only be here for a week. First step: This sweaty, dirty accident victim in gym clothes and Band-Aids needed to do some judicious grooming and outfit-picking for the evening, starting with soap and water.

  Durty Nellie, that was me, all right. This inn had bathrooms with showers, but I needed to soak, so into the tub I went. The soap made my scrapes sting like hell but the water was warm and soothing, and I felt my stiffening neck muscles relax. I popped an extra Advil to take the edge off all my aches and pains, and by the time I got dressed I felt, not perfect, but all right.

  Durt
y Nellie’s had its own pub off the main floor of the inn. It looked pretty casual from the outside, so I put on a snug white blouse, tight jeans and little wedge heels to hoist my butt up a bit.

  Even if Heidi shows up in a g-string, do not freak out, I instructed myself. Heidi is not the person Colin told all his private stuff to today. She does not get his jokes and trade witty banter with him.

  She is merely tall and buff and supermodel-looking, with long, blond, shampoo-commercial hair, limited English and a gullible personality. What guy would be interested in that?

  Shit. I was fekked. I needed to do something to bolster my confidence, but what? Hair, not an option. Ass was already working. All that was left was boobs and makeup. And charm, I guess, but it was too late for drastic improvement in that department.

  Boobs and makeup it was. I put on one of my more low-cut bras and left my shirt unbuttoned one rung below where I’d usually button it. A little peek of lace. Nice.

  Add a double coat of mascara, ruby-red lips and all the jewelry I’d brought with me from home. Mirror check: very nice. There was definitely a girl looking back at me. She was an edgy, shaved-head, I’m-with-the-band type of girl, but hot enough and totally eighteen. And she was me. For tonight, anyway.

  Colin had mentioned he wouldn’t be at dinner because he had to tune up the bikes for tomorrow (he’d have had this chore wrapped up already if he hadn’t spent the afternoon taking care of me, of course). Now that I was feeling and looking somewhat fabulous, the last thing I wanted to do was sit around with my tour mates, fielding questions about my death-defying bike stunt and listening to the Billingsley children squabble.