by John Lenahan
I stood up and went over to where the old woman was holding the policeman’s head. I leaned in and took a close-up look at the old woman.
‘Essa?’
She smiled – it wrinkled up her whole face. ‘Miss me?’
Chapter Two
Ruby
‘Essa, you’re so …’
‘I’m so what?’ she said in a tone that sent warning bells exploding in my brain. ‘How do I look, Conor? Tell me.’
‘Well, you look …’
‘If you say “wrinkled” I’m going to chain you back to that chair. For you, I got off my horse and set foot on the ground in the Real World. Because you and Brendan don’t know how to hide, I am what an eighty-year-old woman looks like in this gods forsaken land. So once again, how do I look?’
‘I was just about to say that you don’t look a day over seventy.’
‘Can we get out of here please,’ Brendan said, ‘I’ve just assaulted a federal agent. I’d like to be gone before that appears on my permanent record.’
Essa opened her briefcase and took out a jar of Vaseline.
‘Are we going to slide out of here?’
Essa didn’t even bother with a dirty look.
‘Oak tree sap,’ Brendan said. ‘It was my mother’s idea to put it in a Vaseline jar to get it past security.’
Essa smeared the sap in a circle on the windowless wall. Then she placed her hand on the sticky circle and incanted. When she removed her hand a gold handprint glowed in the brown circle. She straightened up, groaned and rubbed her back.
‘Ready to leave?’
‘I sure am, grandma.’ That got me a dirty look.
She shouted a single word that sounded like a sneeze and the circle silently blew out of the wall. Daylight poured in among the dust and I could see parked cars through what moments earlier had been a wall.
Brendan crouched down and pointed. ‘We have to get past that gate. My car is parked on the other side.’
I walked over to the unconscious Agent Murano. He was starting to come round and if I was honest, I’d have to admit that I was toying with the idea of kicking him in the ribs so he would have something to remember me by. That’s when I saw it. Brendan had emptied the FBI man’s pockets looking for the handcuff key. In a pile on the floor, was scattered change and car keys attached to a keychain that said Porsche.
‘I’ve got a better idea.’
In the parking lot I pressed the fob attached to the keychain and lights on Agent Andy’s white sports car blinked. It was almost like his car was saying ‘Steal me.’ The car, like the special agent’s shoes, was meticulously cleaned and waxed. It wasn’t new but he tried to make it look like it was – right up to the new-car smell air freshener. It was obvious that my torturer loved this vehicle and I was looking forward to smashing it through the front gate. I didn’t get a chance. Brendan wouldn’t let me behind the wheel. He pointed out that he’d been trained in high-speed driving and I had only been driving for a year. I wouldn’t have gotten to smash it into the gate anyway because it was open. We zoomed past a surprised (and soon-to-be unemployed) guard without even a scratch.
It was a tight fit in the car. I got stuffed in to the back and we broke all Pennsylvania speeding laws. After my incarceration I needed some air, so I reached into the front and pulled the latch for the convertible top. The wind took the roof and ripped it right off the car.
‘Oops,’ I said with a smile worthy of Fergal.
‘Yeeha!’ Essa whooped.
I laughed and shouted over the sound of the rushing wind, ‘Where did you learn to do that?’
‘Isn’t that what you and Fergal used to do when you were excited?’ Essa said, her grey hair swirling around the car.
‘It is – well remembered.’
Brendan was tearing around the back country road at an alarming speed. I would have thought that Essa would be terrified but she loved it.
‘This is like being on dragon-back,’ she shouted. ‘Can everybody go around in contraptions like this?’
‘If they go this fast they get in trouble from the police,’ Brendan answered.
‘But it’s OK because you are police – right?’
‘Not any more,’ Brendan said, ‘I handed in my badge the instant the FBI man hit the wall.’
Brendan slowed a little bit as we turned onto the narrow roads that led to his house. At last we skidded around a corner and saw Brendan’s mother and daughter waiting for us at the exact place where Brendan and I had arrived from Tir na Nog a week earlier.
It was the first time I had ever seen Brendan’s daughter. She stood there in a purple tie-dye tee-shirt, a small pack on her back, a white stick in her hand and classic full-sized Ray-Ban sunglasses that took over her whole face.
Essa quickly busied herself opening the portal. Brendan’s mother, Nora, said, ‘It is very nice to see you again, Conor. Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine, Mrs Fallon.’
I crouched down and addressed Ruby. ‘And you must be Brendan’s little Gem?’
Ruby straightened up and said, ‘Only Daddy can call me Gem.’
‘Oh, sorry. It is very nice to meet you, Miss Fallon.’
She shot her hand straight out in front of her. ‘It is nice to meet you, Mr O’Neil.’
We shook. ‘Call me Conor, Mr O’Neil is my dad. Can I call you Ruby?’
‘You can call me Miss Fallon.’
‘That’s my Gem,’ Brendan said smiling.
‘Well, Miss Fallon, I like your shades.’
Ruby adjusted the huge sunglasses. ‘If they’re good enough for Ray Charles,’ she said, ‘then they’re good enough for me.’
‘Indubitably,’ I agreed.
The sound of distant sirens pulled my attention away from the undersized child in the oversized sunglasses. Essa had started the portal to Tir na Nog – there was an outline hanging in the air but it didn’t look like anything I wanted to step into.
‘Pick up the pace, old lady,’ I said. ‘We’ll soon have company.’
‘You want to do this, Duir Boy?’ she grumbled. ‘Stepping through an unstable portal is almost as dangerous as calling me “old lady”.’
‘Seriously,’ Brendan said. There was concern in his voice. ‘How long?’
‘It could be soon if you would allow me to concentrate.’
Brendan and I left her alone. The noise of the approaching sirens meant the cops were almost there.
‘We’ve got a problem,’ Brendan said.
‘You think?’
‘Essa wields our only non-lethal weapon and she’s busy opening the magic thingy.’
‘You missing your bow and arrows?’
‘If the cops get here before she finishes they’ll shoot you.’
‘Me?’ I said. ‘What about you? How about when they get here, I tell them that this is all your fault, ’cause now that I think about it – it is.’
‘I’ve got an idea of how to slow them down,’ Brendan said, ‘if Ruby is game.’
For the record I thought it was a dreadful idea. And it certainly made it so I can never return to the Real World. When the two cop cars screeched to a halt in the gravel road, Brendan and his mother stood in front of me frantically waving their hands. Three policemen and Special Agent Murano all got out – guns drawn.
‘Don’t shoot,’ Brendan shouted. ‘He’s got my daughter.’
What the cops saw was me holding a knife to little Ruby’s throat. Actually it was the nail file from Brendan’s Swiss army knife but hopefully none of the cops’ eyesight was good enough to notice that.
‘Stand back coppers,’ I said in my best Jimmy Cagney voice, ‘or I’ll let the girl have it.’
That was Ruby’s cue to let loose what her father called one of her ‘migraine screams’. Despite the name, I was unprepared for the ear bleeding, high-pitched volume of the screech. I almost dropped the knife and I’m sure that every dog in a five-mile radius ran underneath a sofa.
‘Ow,’ I said.
Brendan turned around and whispered, ‘Told you so.’
‘Take it easy, O’Neil,’ one of the policemen shouted.
‘I don’t want to talk to you. I want to talk to The Shrink.’
‘OK, O’Neil, we’ll get you a psychologist,’ the cop replied. ‘It’s just going to take a little time.’
‘I don’t want to talk to a psychologist, I want to talk to THE SHRINK aka Agent Andy. Didn’t you guys know? That’s what they call him at FBI central.’
‘Don’t hurt the girl, O’Neil,’ Murano shouted.
Ruby let loose another one of her sonic screams that made us all tilt our head a bit until it was over. I was surprised that the lenses in her Ray-Bans didn’t shatter.
‘This is your fault, Shrink,’ I shouted. ‘I was a mild-mannered fantasist before you tied me to a chair and tortured me. You turned me into a child killer.’ I gave Ruby a shake for effect and she bit my arm. It really hurt. I lowered the knife and I saw the cops levelling their guns.
Brendan stepped in front fast and said, ‘Don’t shoot,’ while I repositioned the nail file. I whispered to Ruby, ‘What you bite me for?’
She whispered, ‘I’m trying to make it look good.’
‘Well, ow,’ I said and then got back to work on the FBI man. ‘So is attacking a shackled man in the FBI interrogation book?’
‘I never …’
‘Don’t make me do it,’ I shouted. ‘You know what you did. You tortured me and wrote out a fake confession.’
I was stalling for time but I also wanted Murano to feel a little bit guilty about all this. I’m sure in his mind he now felt exonerated about how he treated me. After all, I wasn’t being very chivalrous – I had a knife to the throat of a young blind girl – but I hoped that someone would investigate his actions and get him busted to airport bathroom security.
‘Almost there,’ Essa shouted.
‘Thank the gods,’ I said.
‘O’Neil,’ Murano said, ‘what is the old woman doing?’
The familiar ring of an active portal reached my ears as Essa said, ‘Who you calling old?’
Mom, Dad and Nieve burst through the portal on horseback. Mom threw two of her Shadowmagic exploding light bombs at the two cops on the left and Dad and Nieve threw what looked like small knives at the other cop and the FBI man. The knives swerved directly into the chests of the cop and Agent Murano.
While Mom’s victims were blown off their feet, the cop and the FBI man just looked at the knives sticking out of their chests and fell over backwards.
‘Hi, son,’ Dad said casually as he rode over to Murano.
‘You didn’t have to kill them!’ Brendan shouted as he ran to the FBI man and reached for the knife sticking out of his chest.
Dad stopped him. ‘It’s not a knife.’
‘I can … I can’t move,’ the Fed said.
‘It’s a knife handle but no blade,’ Dad explained, ‘instead of a blade it has one of Nieve’s paralysing pins in it. Pull it out.’ Brendan pulled the knife blade out of the FBI man’s chest and looked at the gold pin.
‘Cool,’ Brendan said and handed it to me.
Murano sat up and felt his chest. ‘I can mo—’
I stuck the pin/knife back in his chest and he fell over like a stuffed teddy bear.
Nieve rode over and while hanging dangerously low to the side of her saddle, gave Brendan a long kiss. When it seemed like it would never stop, Brendan’s mother gave a discreet cough. Brendan looked up to see his mother staring at him with her arms crossed.
‘Oh yeah. Um, Mom, Gem, this is my … friend, Nieve. Nieve, this is my mother Nora and my daughter Ruby.’
Nieve replied, ‘It is very nice to meet you, I’ve heard so much about you both.’
‘We’ll have plenty of time for niceties once we are back in The Land,’ Mom said, riding by. ‘Let us leave this place.’
Brendan turned to his mother and daughter. ‘Are you sure you want to do this? You might not ever get to come back.’
‘We have already discussed this,’ Nora said. ‘What you did today was right and I am proud of you but your actions mean you can no longer stay here.’
‘We want to be with you, Daddy,’ Ruby said taking her father’s hand. His mother took the other and the three of them walked through the portal.
Mom was next. I asked her to relay a message to Tuan for me when she got back to Tir na Nog then I cuffed the cop with his own handcuffs and hog-tied the FBI man with his belt. I took back the paralysing throwing pins and made sure that Murano could see both the portal and his car. The Fed was obviously very shook up and when he finally could find his voice he asked, ‘Who are you people?’
‘We’re Faeries from Pixieland and you, Agent Andy, are a jerk, but you were right about one thing – I’m not crazy. I really did ride a dragon and to prove it to you …’ I grabbed his hair and turned his head towards the portal. Tuan in all of his dragon splendour popped his head through and Agent Andy gasped.
‘I was thinking about having him eat you,’ I said as I walked over and gave Tuan a rub on the snout, ‘but then I had a better idea.’
I whispered into Tuan’s earhole and stepped back. He gave a shrug that meant, ‘If that’s what you want’, and puffed a perfect little ball of fire directly at Agent Murano’s precious Porsche. The car exploded and as the radiator ruptured it gave out a little squeal like a dying mouse. The look on Murano’s face almost made this whole debacle seem worthwhile.
Chapter Three
Macha
Ruby stood in the centre of the Hall of Spells. She tilted her head and spun, dragging her stick on the tiles that represented all of the major runes. ‘We’re not in Scranton any more.’
‘How can you tell that?’ I asked.
‘I’m blind, not stupid.’
‘Ruby!’ her father and grandmother shouted simultaneously.
The young girl shrugged, turned to me and said sorry, but it didn’t seem like her heart was in it. I laughed.
‘Don’t encourage her,’ Brendan said. ‘We are working on Ruby’s rudeness.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘it sounds like frankness to me. If I need an honest opinion I will know who to ask.’
‘See?’ Ruby said to her father.
‘Ruby’s opinions tend to be too honest.’
I looked up to see Mom and Dad standing waiting for our discussion to end. I cleared my throat and pointed to Brendan’s mother and daughter.
‘Nora and Ruby, may I present to you Lord Oisin of Duir and Princess Deirdre of Cull – my mom and dad.’
Nora bowed then whispered to Ruby who bowed too. As she did, Ruby’s huge sunglasses dropped from her face. Her eyes were dark blue and seemingly unharmed but scars were still visible high on her cheeks where the shards of glass had entered her face and ruined her optic nerve.
Mom stepped up and took Brendan’s mother by the shoulders. ‘It is I who should be bowing to you,’ she said with a nod of the head. ‘You risked your lives today in aid of my son.’
‘I would hardly say our lives were at risk, Your Highness,’ Nora said.
‘You went toe to toe with the FBI and the Scranton cops,’ Dad piped in, ‘I’d say you were risking something. Welcome to Castle Duir. This is our home and for as long as we live here, it is your home as well.’
I leaned in to Nora and whispered, ‘And people live a long time around here.’
‘Daddy promised me a huge bedroom,’ Ruby announced. ‘I’d like to see it now.’
‘Ruby,’ Nora and Brendan again admonished in unison, but Mom, Dad and Nieve just laughed.
‘Of course,’ Mom said. ‘You must be tired. Let me show you to your rooms.’
As Mom and Nieve escorted the Fallons to the west wing, I looked about for Essa and Tuan but they had left.
‘I think she is off with Tuan getting a dragon blood youth tonic,’ Dad said.
‘Who?’ I said nonchalantly.
‘Who?’ Dad scoffed. ‘Essa, th
e princess that you are looking for.’
‘Who said I was looking for Essa?’
‘Oh, my mistake,’ Dad said sarcastically, ‘maybe you were looking for Graysea? By the way, how are the princess and the mermaid getting along?’
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you Dad?’
‘Oh yes,’ Dad said over his shoulder as he ran to catch up with Mom.
Dad came into my room as I was practising my knife throwing. He gingerly pulled the dagger from the wall and inspected the woodwork. ‘Don’t do that.’
‘Mom and Aein told me that you used to do it.’
‘Yes and I got in trouble with my father for it too. I’ll get you a dart board or something. Just go easy on the walls. It probably took an elf fifty years to carve this little section.’
‘OK,’ I said, ‘sorry.’
Dad laid the knife across his palm, feeling its balance. ‘You’re not using one of Dahy’s gold-tipped specials?’
‘No, it’s too easy. Also I don’t like seeing the way the knife swerves in the air. It … it reminds me of how Spideog died.’
‘Oh, of course,’ he said, handing me back the knife, ‘I was sorry to hear about that. You really liked him, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah, I did. You didn’t though, did you?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say I didn’t like Spideog, it was just … well, now that I think about it, I really didn’t know him very well. You have to realise that I was Dahy’s student from a young age so I just took my master’s side. I never really knew what those two guys were feuding over until you told me. It makes sense now. Dad never talked about my mother much. Most of the things I know about her are from what Dahy told me.’
‘Don’t you remember Macha at all?’
‘Oh, I have a memory of smiling eyes, but maybe it’s just a false memory that my child mind conjured up while looking at her portrait.’
‘Is there a picture of her in the castle?’
‘Sure – in the north wing.’
‘Can we go see it?’
‘Now?’
‘Why not?’
We walked through the castle together. Jeez, I thought the bowing and scraping was bad with me but for Dad it was just short of grovelling. He didn’t try to discourage it. It was the way I was dealing with it too. You just can’t spend all day saying ‘Stop that.’