“It's Queen Titania's doing. She's trying to mix up the two worlds, and it's getting worse by the minute. I'm going to try to stop her.” Then I had a disturbing thought. “If I succeedâI'm not sure what will happen to this doorway.”
Grandpap gave the door an appraising look. “Don't worry, lass, the frame's sturdy and it hangs nice and plumb too.”
Nan rolled her eyes. “She's sayin' ye might get stuck on one side or t'other, Bill.”
He rolled his eyes back at her. “I understand what she's sayin', Granny Nanny! I may be old, but I'm not deaf.”
She turned and twined her arms around his neck. “You don't look so very old to me, William O'Grady.”
Oh, my. Could interdimensional time-traveling smoochy woochy be far behind? Time for me to leave. “I'm going to the pub to look for Colin. Thanks for all the advice.”
“You just keep wearin' that locket round yer neck, dear,” Nan murmured, but she was still looking adoringly at her husband. “It'll remind ye what's important when all else fails.”
“And I'll stay hereâjust a while longer.” Grandpap gazed at his wife with a tender smile. “Nan and I've still got some catchin' up to do.”
twenty
in the ripley's believe it or not! department, get
ting relationship advice from Colin's deceased granny is going to be hard to top,
I thought, as I collapsed into one of the chairs at the kitchen table to regroup.
I was a mess. I'd been up for most of two nights in a row. I had dirt all over me from rolling around in misery on the ground. I'd worked up a sweat sprinting back and forth to the forest and was starting to have BO. And now I kind of smelled like a farm too.
I checked my shoes for cow dung. Was there time to take a shower and change? Not that I'd be getting that close to anyone, but still, it was kind of gross.
Then I flipped over the local newspaper I'd tossed onto the table when I'd arrived and glanced idly at the headline.
BIZARRE EVENTS AT FAMED WELSH RESORT PROMPT INVESTIGATION
Southwest Wales, U.K.âNumerous calls to the authorities from guests at the popular Welsh vacation spot Castell Cyfareddol have prompted an investigation of what a government spokesman will only describe as “escalating occurrences of unexplained phenomena.”
Filed complaints include the appearance and disappearance of famous architectural landmarks (one woman claimed that the Eiffel Tower, the Roman Coliseum and the Taj Mahal were all briefly visible outside her hotel room window). Also reported was an infestation of numerous gargoylelike creatures on the grounds, and a “bloody lifelike unicorn,” according to one man who identified himself as a psychiatrist but refused to give his name, due to concerns about losing his license.
The most alarming incident reported so far was an encounter with what a witness claims was “a real live dragon.” “At first I thought it was an animatronic display,” explained Eleanor Cranbrook, a certified X-ray technician and mother of two who was a guest at the resort until she left in a panic yesterday after the alleged dragon incident. “So I held the baby up to see it, and the nasty beast started breathing flames at us! This certainly isn't what I had in mind when I put the deposit down on the room! We were hoping for a budget-minded family holiday, not scorched diapers. I'll be asking for a refund, you may be sure.”
Teams of investigators and safety officers have been dispatched from Scotland Yard and are now en route to Wales. Calls to the resort's management office had not been returned by press time. . . .
So long, veil,
I thought grimly. How long would it take for the slippage to spill out past the grounds of Castell Cyfareddol? A few more days, maybe? A few more hours?
The needle on the weirdness meter was now firmly pinned in the red zone. The swarms of journalists would be followed by engineers, scientists, the crew of
Mythbusters
and eventually, the locked-and-loaded military forces of NATO and probably most of the rest of the world too.
Time's up,
I thought in despair.
It's already all over the papers, the radio, the tellyâ
Waitâthe telly? Where was Colin?
I felt a goddess-sized dose of adrenaline pump through my body.
He's going to completely freak out when he sees this. And I'm the only one who can explain.
My hand flew to the locket. The world needed me. True.
Colin needed me more.
I threw down the newspaper and ran.
Â
Â
Â
“go, come on, go, go, run, ye lazy bastards!”
Grandpap knew his grandson well. Under severe mental and emotional stress, Colin had instinctively retreated to the safety of the mothershipâin this case, the Achin' Head, Castell Cyfareddol's very own pub, located off the hotel lobby.
Colin stood in front of the plasma TV at one end of the bar with a remote in one hand and a pint of Guinness in the other. On the screen, sweaty men in colorful uniforms and brutal-looking cleats ran up and down the field, throwing an egg-shaped ball back and forth.
The pub was crammed with people, but Colin watched the game alone. Everyone else crowded at the other end of the bar, their frightened eyes fixed on an even larger TV screen tuned to
BBC World News
. The lead story was the strange goings-on at Castell Cyfareddol.
“Which team are you rooting for?” I snuck up behind him and spoke just loud enough to get his attention. He spun around so fast you'd think a bee stung him.
“If I had me druthers, both teams'd lose. Why shouldn't everyone be miserable?” His face was hard to read. “Did ye come here to watch rugby, or are ye savin' the world one pub at a time? I'd order ye a beer but ye're still not old enough to drink.”
“I came to apologize, Colin,” I said as gently as I could. “There's so much I need to explain.”
“It's not that much, really,” he said darkly. “In fact there's only one thing I want to know, Morâexactly how many lies have ye told me since the day we met?”
“A lotâbut only about this one thing, Colin. Only aboutâwell, you know.” I glanced at the anxious crowd huddled around the other television. “And soon that secret'll be out too.”
He put his drink on the bar and muted the rugby match with a click on the remote. “Forget about all that. How many lies have you, Morgan, told to me, Colin, just today?”
I thought back to the morning. “Well, I didn't actually forget my toothbrush.”
“Ye know I ran all the way to the gift shop to buy ye a new one while ye were sleeping?” he exclaimed. “Why in bloody hell would ye lie about a toothbrush?”
“It was because of the painting,” I explained desperately. “It was Queen Titania's face!”
And what the fek does that have to do with a toothbrush?
The hurt in his eyes spoke louder than words could.
“Ye know I love ye, Mor,” he said, his voice breaking. “I love ye like I never expected to love anybody. And I've felt that way for a whole bloody year. And now I find out that ye're not even the actual person I thought ye were. It's fekkin' upsetting, is what it is. I can't even imagine how ye did it. I'm a straight-shootin' bloke, Mor. I could never go through me whole life keepin' a secret from the whole world.” His blue eyes burned into me. “I mean, you've even got two names, haven't ye? This âMorgan, Morganne' businessâit's no accident, is it?”
“But it's still
me
!” I wailed. “The name thing is just, you know,
spelling
â”
He threw up his hands. “And here I am like a dunce, worryin' about identity theft! But it's not yer bloody AmEx card or e-mail password that's been nicked. It's
you.
Ye're the girl I love. And
your
identity has been stolen. And mine too somehow.” He looked at me, agony on his face. “Because now I don't know who I love. So who does that make me?”
The rugby players on the screen raced back and forth in muted silence. The people at the far end of the bar were talking in urgent, frightened tones. If it hadn't felt like the end of the world before, it sure did now.
I turned to him. “You're the same person you've always been,” I said heatedly. “You're Colin. The smart, stubborn, wonderful guy I fell in love with a year ago. I'm sorry for not telling you the whole story about who I am. I'd convinced myself that I couldn't. I thought if you knew the truth about me you'd think I was crazy, or a freak.”
I felt myself starting to slide into the blubbering danger zone, but I forced myself to go on. “I was afraid you'd run away from me. I didn't trust you enough. That's my fault. I should have taken the risk. Colin, I made a mistake, and I'm sorry for that.” I held his gaze. “But I'm not sorry for who I am.”
He fell silent, and his face softened. “Well, I did run away, didn't I? So I didn't deserve yer trust in the end.”
At the other end of the bar, a woman screamed. Hysteria spread through the crowd as breaking news headlines crawled across the bottom of the screen. Someone adjusted the volume higher, but there was too much cross talk to hear. The news crawl was enough, though:
Winged fire-breathing dragon sighted in the skies over Londonâ
That did it. A few people raced out of the pub, yelling into their cell phones. Someone at the bar fainted, which caused a fresh round of pandemonium.
Colin looked at me with new understanding. “This is it, then? This is what ye're supposed to become Queen of the Faeries to save the world from?”
I nodded.
“What is it, some kind of invasion?”
“Not exactly.” I took a deep breathâit was time to spill the beans. “Magic is everywhere, all the time, but there's a barrier between the human world and the faery realm. They can see us, we can't see themâat least, most of the time we can't. Unless you're a little kid, or someone who's extra imaginative, like a writer or an artistâ”
“Or ye've downed a few too many pints,” he said thoughtfully.
“Right.” I gave him an ironic look. “It's been that way for ages. But now Queen Titania is removing the barrier, bit by bit. It's just going to be random weirdness everywhere from now on if I don't figure out how to de-throne her and put things back the way they were.”
“Titaniaâye mean that hatchet-faced wench with the unicorn?” That logical, problem-solving glimmer flashed in his shockingly blue eyes. “D'ye have any clues? Is there a game plan, or what?”
“Not really. Just a prophecy that I can't make sense of. It starts like this:
“To win the throne is easily done,
The throne is yours when the throne you've won.”
I shrugged. “Useless, right?”
He looked thoughtful. “In programming that's what we call an infinite loop. Ye need to find the exit. Or rewrite the code.” He shook his head. “Sorry I can't be more help, Mor. But ye've got my vote, for whatever it's worth.”
It was worth plenty. The world might be rapidly slipping into chaos, and I still had no clue what to do about it, but at least Colin didn't hate me anymore. “Thanks,” I said. I even managed a smile.
“No need to thank me; it's pure self-interest,” he said wryly. “All me technical trainin' at DCU's not gonna be worth much if we transition to a new faery-world economy.”
Together we turned and looked at the large screen. The news anchors were pale and disheveled, and the headlines just kept rolling in. . . .
Blurry cell phone pictures of what look to be living gargoyles appearing on the Internet . . . panel of experts to debate their authenticity after the break . . . stay tuned for live coverage from Castell Cyfareddol . . .
Colin let out a whistle. “Reality's bloody banjaxed, innit? I've spent me whole life believin' the world worked in a rational way, and now this. Everything's changing so fast.” He looked at me with a trace of the old tenderness, and my heart quickened.
Then he turned away. “Listen to me! I sound just like Grandpap did when I tried to teach him how to use the cash machines at the bank.” Worry clouded his face. “I ought to go back to the Seahorse. If Grandpap turns on the telly he'll get an earful of catastrophe, and who knows what he'll do?”
“Colin,” I said quickly, “I should warn you: If you go back to the cottage you're in for another surprise.”
“What?” He tensed. “Is something wrong with Grandpap?”
“No, it's just more magic stuff. A portal opened up in the cottage this morning. It's like a doorwayâin fact, it
is
a doorway. Anyway, Grandpap went through it, andâ”
“A doorway? What, into faeryland?” He looked wild. “I've got to go get him back!”
“Colin, he's fine, reallyâ”
“Tell the barkeep to charge me Guinness to the Seahorse. If anyone still cares about such things, that is.” He ran out of the pub before I could say another word.
Should I chase after him? I knew I'd never catch him. Colin was as fit and fast as the tireless rugby players who were still racing around on the screen above my head, as if this were just a normal day and not the beginning of the end of the world.
Or, who knows? Maybe the game was a rerun.
At the far end of the bar the newscasters continued barking out their dire announcements in hoarse, frightened voices to the rapidly emptying pubâ
. . . rash of unexplained phenomena has sparked a national frenzy . . . incidents of looting are being reported . . . citizens advised to stock up on bottled water and canned goods . . .