by L. A. Boruff
He looked up at me, an edge of worry in his eyes that disconcerted me. Or had something happened in the time it took for my ablutions?
“What is it?” I went to my knees between his spread legs. “What has happened?”
He swallowed, and I saw the lump in his throat move up and down. It was curious how the small movement held my attention. I thrust the thought to one side and gazed up at him.
“Tell me, please,” I begged, placing my hands on his knees. “Is there word of my father?”
His face softened, and he stroked his hand through my hair. “No. I was worried I had offended you, or worse, frightened you.”
“Offended me?” What could he possibly have done that would offend or frighten me? Unless he was referring to the snores. “Oh! Well, I have a confession to make.”
“You do?” An eyebrow arched and a flare of something a bit like hope crossed his face.
“I do. It would appear that I was much more exhausted than I thought. I must confess I do not know whether you snore or not. But this is good news. If you did snore, it wasn’t enough to wake me. Whereas my father’s snores can be heard in here sometimes.”
Humour filled his face and then he was cupping my face, kissing me. But this was the strangest kiss. It wasn’t the good night peck my father gave me on my cheek before bedtime. No, Jack’s lips were pressed to mine, and it was—
He sat back and confusion warred with regret inside me that he’d moved.
“Tell me, Maebh, tell me what you’re thinking,” he murmured, his palms still cupping my cheeks.
“That was such an odd kiss.”
“In what way?” He didn’t sound or look angry.
“My father kisses me on my cheek, and I kiss him on his forehead. But you…” I touched my fingertips to my lips. It was so different and left me wanting more.
“I’m not your father, Maebh.”
“So, kissing on the lips is for people who are not my father?” A horrifying thought entered my head, and I pulled back from him in disgust. “I refuse to kiss Fiach like that. He dribbles when he speaks.”
“I refuse to let you kiss Fiach like that,” he retorted. “Maebh, you are far more innocent than I thought. But I won’t be a cad with you. My entire being is shouting at me to pull you up onto this bed and show you everything you don’t know. But my heart demands I treat you with care and give you the choice. Now isn’t the time. But I promise you when your father is returned safely and well, I will talk more with you. Will you wait for that? For me?”
I didn’t fully understand what he meant, but my answer was easy because of the expression in his eyes. It was like the expression I saw in my father’s eyes, but vastly different too. But whatever made it different, I believed it was rooted in the same emotions. He cared for me.
“Yes, I’ll wait for you, Jack.”
His lips were on mine before I’d even finished speaking, his fingers tangling into my hair. But this was most definitely different. His lips didn’t stay still, they moved from side to side. A gentle brush that made me shift closer, eager for more. He smiled against my lips, his eyes holding mine despite how close we were.
“Open your mouth, Maebh,” he murmured and licked the seam of my lips with his tongue.
I opened my mouth to ask why, but he pushed his tongue between my teeth. My initial reaction was of surprise and confusion. But when he stroked his tongue over mine, I lost all thoughts. Those tingles were back, but they were spreading from my tongue down. He swept the roof of my mouth, and I was unable to hold back the sound he drew from me. Sounds I’d never made before, and ones he seemed to enjoy. He groaned into my mouth, and his eyes slid closed. Tilting his head, his lips pushed against mine as his tongue continued to explore my mouth.
I clutched at his shoulders as an urgency for something out of my reach took control of me. I copied his moves, exploring his mouth in much the same manner. He might be bad for my health, but he tasted wonderful.
But he was stealing my breath, and I needed it to live.
I pulled back from him, dragging as much air as I could into my starved lungs.
“Slow down, Maebh, shh. You’ll pass out, slow deep breaths.”
I nodded, obeying him, and my breathing evened out as he stroked his fingers through my hair.
“Promise me one thing, Maebh, please.” His blue-green eyes were darker, almost stormy looking, and I nodded at him, trusting him implicitly.
“Don’t let anyone else kiss you like this. At least not until I can talk with you.”
I nodded again and sighed heavily. My thoughts went to my father, and I sank onto my ankles, breaking the hold he had on my hair.
“What was your plan?” I asked.
He drew in a breath through his nose, his pale lips pressed together. “It will require you to trust me to keep my promise to you.”
“What promise?”
“Leprechauns need their gold pots, don’t they?”
I nodded. That was common knowledge and not a promise, so I waited quietly.
“This is my plan: you will go to the king and agree to the exchange between yourself and your father. Let your father leave to return here, and I shall make sure he’s safe.”
“That was my plan too,” I replied. I wasn’t happy with staying with the king, but I saw no other options.
“I haven’t finished. I’m going to steal the king’s pots of gold…”
I gasped in horror, covering my mouth with both hands. “You can’t do that! He’ll never be able to make rainbows again.” But he’d taken my father, imprisoned him, made him suffer. “Okay, I agree with your plan. We’ll do that.”
“I still haven’t finished,” he murmured and kissed the end of my nose. Another strange place to kiss me.
“I shall demand he give me you in exchange for the pots of gold.”
“Me?” I frowned and then it slotted into place, and I beamed at him. “You’re a genius!” I flung my arms around his neck, dragging him onto the floor with me.
He laughed, catching his balance, and holding me tight against him. “It’s not genius; it’s desperation.”
“You are clever.” I pulled back. “Are you sure it will work?” I frowned, trying to think through angles that could make it fail.
“You said it yourself, he can’t make rainbows without his pots—”
“Oh no!” I cried out. “It won’t work.” We’d forgotten something crucial. “No one knows where another’s gold is hidden. We have no way of finding out where his pots of gold are.”
Jack sat back. He obviously hadn’t considered this. “No one? Do you know where your father’s are?”
I shook my head. “No, I never go with him when he visits them. He’s never sure whether it would accept a human.”
“Right.” He clicked his fingers. “So we know the entryway is magic. Does he leave the house for long?”
“He doesn’t…” I beamed at him. “He doesn’t leave at all. He stays inside his room. He doesn’t even bother taking his hat, and his hat is the only thing I can never get off him to clean!”
“His hat?” He was on his feet and pulling me up with him. “I saw his hat on the floor in your parlour. He must have struggled and it was dislodged.”
“Oh, no!” Did they hurt him badly? Was he very frightened? I should never have left him. I was a bad, wicked person and a bad, wicked daughter.
I followed him into the room and cried out when I saw his black tall hat lying on the floor. The gold buckle at the front was scuffed, and the side was bent. I rushed forward and picked it up, using the edge of my skirt to shine up the metal.
“Put it down for a moment. I have an idea.”
I set it on the table, but he picked it up and put it on the floor, top down. He peered inside and gave a hoot of delight. “I was right!”
He indicated for me to look inside, but all I saw was the black felt base, with a few stray strands of my beloved father’s orange hair.
“What am I l
ooking for?”
“Of course, you won’t see it. It’s a magic portal, and I’d bet my icicles every leplings’ hat works the same way. I’m going to try. I may not get all the way in because I’m half human, but at least it will confirm my hopes.”
“You mean my father’s gold is in… there? But leprechauns can’t use magic, they don’t possess any of their own.”
“No, but their rainbows are. So are the pots of gold,”
“No, they’re real. I’ve seen the rainbows in the sky.”
“They’re real, but the pots are not in this world.”
“Like… like…” I shrugged, not able to comprehend what he meant.
“It’s like a world apart from ours. You know how you have to go through the forests to reach any other land, even the human lands?”
“Yes, they bridge the… Oh, I understand, the hat is like the forest. You go through the hat to get to the land that holds my father’s pots of gold. Which means I’ll need to find a way to get into the king’s hat.”
“No.” He shook his head. “That would be too dangerous. He can’t have your father killed, but he can have you killed.”
“Then what are we to do? How do we get his gold?”
“Let me see what lies at the bottom of your father’s hat first.”
“Okay.” I nodded and watched as he lifted the hat and stretched his arm inside. It was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen. He was drawing the hat up his arm, but his arm was not appearing out of the bottom of the hat. It was like he was being consumed by it.
A shiver of fear slid through me. What if he never returned?
“Wait!” I went towards him, and he hesitated. I rose on my toes and kissed his lips. “Please, be careful.”
He grinned at me, winked, and with a pop disappeared inside the hat. It fell to the floor, spinning before coming to a rest. I peered inside, expecting to see a tiny Jack Frost looking up at me, but all I saw was the bottom of the hat.
I sat on the floor with the hat on my lap and waited. There was nothing else I could do except sit and plan ways of getting the pots of gold from the king without his knowledge. Not an easy feat when leprechauns even bathed with their hats on.
They didn’t, however, sleep with them on. Or at least my father didn’t. I never saw him outside of his bedroom without his hat on. But when I was smaller and crawled into bed with him, his hat was always sitting on top of his pile of clothes. All I had to do was wait for the king to sleep. Find a way to sneak in, steal his hat, get it to Jack, and then get it back to the king before he woke.
I would discuss this with Jack the moment he came back.
But concern crept through me as the minutes ticked by with no sign of Jack’s return.
A hooting heralded an announcement from the clock, “More return than I can chime. Same amount as previous time.”
I scrambled to my feet, fear made my movements jerky, and I dropped the hat. I hastened to pick it up, what would I do? Where could I go? If I ran back into the forest, I might be caught now father wasn’t there to distract them. The sound of thudding feet told me I had little time. I would hide the hat, leave a note for Jack, and hope that he understood the plan.
I just had time to put his hat and the note down behind my bedroom door before the guards banged on the door and then burst through it.
I ran towards the back door out of pure instinct, but I didn’t get far before they caught me. Lots of little men began pulling and tugging at my hair and clothes. One or two, maybe even three, I could have fought off, but not twenty. I was soon buried under them and tied up. As they dragged me to my feet, one of them hit me over the head with something and I knew no more.
* * *
I didn’t know what I expected when I came around. Maybe that I’d be locked up in a cell somewhere, with iron bars over the window and door. Or that I’d be chained to a wall. But it certainly wasn’t the beautiful room I did wake in. The bed I was lying on was short, and my knees were bent over the end, my feet on the floor. The ceiling above my head was painted with pictures of leprechauns. Some had wings and were holding tiny harps. Others were sitting on couches with bowls of fruit and curly haired lambs frolicking around their feet.
I sat up slowly. The movement made my head hurt, and I remembered the hit I’d taken. I touched it gingerly, wincing at the bump there. I didn’t know what the lepling used to hit me, but it hurt.
“You’re awake.”
Startled, I gasped, turning on the bed. Sitting in a wingback chair in front of an arched window was Fiach. I snarled at him and stood up, smacking my head on the low ceiling. I groaned, plopping back down and the bed cracked a little under my weight. I eyed Fiach with a mean expression, rubbing my sore head.
“None of this would have happened if you’d done as I asked,” he pointed out.
I shuddered at the dribble that slid from the middle of his thin lips.
“Where is my father?”
“Around here somewhere. You won’t see him, though.”
“You nasty, vile little… man!” My heart beat increased at the insult I gave him, but he had kidnapped my father.
Horror filled his face, and he drew back. “How dare you call me such names? He got up, rising to his full, diminutive height, complete with hat. Which reminded me of Jack, and fresh worry filled me. Had he got out of the hat unhurt? What if he didn’t find my note, or if he did find it, but didn’t care enough to come for me?
No. Jack had given his word, and I would trust him. Until I had a reason not to.
“You will come with me,” Fiach commanded. “The king will see you straight away. I offered to allow you to clean up before he saw you. But he’s right, no amount of water could make a human more attractive.”
The derision with which the word human was delivered made me stick my tongue out at him. He screwed up his face at me, the wart that sat on the end of his nose wiggled, and I couldn’t help but stare at it, perched precariously on the end, but rooted firm enough to dance when he spoke.
“You will follow me, and I suggest you hold your tongue, human, if you wish to see your father live.”
I opened my mouth to tell him he couldn’t kill my father but just stopped myself.
“Yes, now you understand, don’t you?” He snapped his fingers at me and opened the door. “Think you’re better than us, don’t you?”
“No. I don’t think I’m better than you. I’m a lepling, just like you.”
“Lies! Villainous lies! You are not a leprechaun!” He made a rude noise and went ahead of me. He was dressed as all leplings were. Green and white stripy socks with green, plus four trousers. A green jacket and the usual black top hat perched on his head completed the look. I’d asked my father why they all dressed the same, and he’d merely shrugged and said it was the leprechaun way. I thought my father looked distinguished in his outfit. Fiach just looked self-important and silly.
I had to stoop as I followed him or risk more damage to my head. It gave me a crick in my neck, and I gave up trying to look around me and concentrated on my footing.
“What is this place?” It seemed as if we’d been walking for hours, up and down long corridors. We’d gone up three staircases and down four, making it impossible to get an idea of the layout or even remember the way we’d come.
“This is not a ‘place’. This is the palace. His Royal Highness, King Ludwhomp III, Defender of the Isle, Regent of the Realm, Emperor of the Emerald Isle, and Leader of the Leplings lives here.”
“Very impressive,” I murmured. I caught a movement out of my eye and saw two leprechauns huddled together under a desk. “What are they doing?”
He refused to comment, but once I’d passed, they scuttled back out and resumed their seats. It was all rather odd. Were they nervous of Fiach? I could understand if they were. He was the most disagreeable lepling I’d met, and that was saying something. In my limited experience of leprechauns, they all seemed grumpy and bad-natured. Apart from my father, of course, w
ho was rarely grumpy and never bad-natured. At least not without good reason.
“Stop!” In my musings, I hadn’t seen Fiach come to a halt and I almost walked into him. I stumbled, using the wall to support myself. I must have caught something with my elbow because there was a clatter and then the sound of shattering glass.
“Great, ugly oaf! Look what you’ve done. You nincompoop, oversized milk bottle!” He began to swat at my arm with a roll of paper he had in his hand that I hadn’t noticed before. “You overgrown, milk sopped collywapple.”
“That’s enough!” A voice boomed out, and I jumped, expecting to see a giant or at least an elf with a voice that loud and deep.
I whirled around, and Fiach used my momentum to stick his foot out and trip me. I went to my knees heavily, letting out a cry of pain. His fingers caught hold of my ear, keeping me on my knees. I tried to squirm away, but he twisted my ear, and I glared at him.
“Your Majesty.” He bowed. “May I present the… human.”
He had a real dislike of the word human, or probably just me. I looked up, trying to find the source of the deep voice. Empty chairs lined either side of the long room. A long, narrow red carpet led to a raised platform with an ornate, red velvet and gold throne. Two guards were stationed either side of the throne. I peered closer and realised there was someone in the chair. But he was far smaller than even Fiach, who was shorter by several inches compared to my father. In fact, now I thought about it, my father was a good deal taller than all the leplings I’d seen.
But this lepling was roughly the same size I was when I was about eight, maybe even slightly smaller. It couldn’t have been him that spoke. But this had to be the king on his throne. A rather small king, with a rather large throne.
Fiach clicked his fingers and let go of my ear. I tried to get up, but two guards came up. They gripped my elbows and hauled me towards the throne. I would have protested, but the whole thing seemed rather surreal, like one of the stories my father would tell me about when I was little. But underneath, an edge of fear was lying in wait. Jack had been right; they may not kill each other, but they could kill me. The sharp swords they wore at their waists and the pointed spears in their hands were a physical reminder.
