by E. G. Foley
“This is my fault. I should be the one to face him, Jake. He’s only here because of me—”
“Nixie, his sword alone is taller than you are. No,” Jake replied. “I promised you my friends and I would free you from the Bugganes, and I keep my word. Especially after what you just did…for Archie.”
“Yes, but you needn’t do it alone!” she insisted. “Jake, you just proved to me that everyone needs allies. I think there’s something I can do.”
“I’m listening,” he said.
Nixie told him her plan.
# # #
A few minutes later, satisfied with their strategy, Jake set off across the field alone. Unfortunately, Red was not having it.
The Gryphon galloped ahead of him and stood in his path to block him, all four paws planted.
“Stand aside, boy. As much as I’d love to have you with me, it won’t work. I have to do this alone.”
“Caw!” Red shook his head angrily.
“Aw, don’t worry, you old mother hen. I know he’s got no head, and that is rather disturbing, but look on the bright side. He hasn’t got any magic powers, which means at least he’s not as bad as Garnock, anyway. All he’s got is a really big sword. On the other hand, I’ve got the advantage of a having my head. That’s got to count for something.”
“Caw becaw?”
“Oh, and I’ve got Risker, too,” he added, holding up his very sharp magical dagger, a gift from Odin after his heroics (if he dared say so himself) in the land of the Norse giants.
The worried Gryphon let out a low yowl of disapproval.
“Now, now, you and I will have plenty of adventures in future. Trust me, this won’t take long.”
Red sat down on his haunches in protest, abruptly unfurling his wings when Jake tried to walk around him.
“Phooey!” Jake spat out the taste of feathers and scowled at his pet. “Would you grow up?”
It was nice to say it to somebody else for a change instead of having it said to him. Red snorted in reply, considering that he was about nine hundred years old, at best estimate.
Jake patted him on the head. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine! I can do this. Don’t you believe in me?”
“Cawwww,” Red complained.
“I’ll be right back! Now, no more. I’m ordering you as your master to stand aside. Go and wait for me with the others. Watch Dani for me,” he added, knowing that would get the stubborn beast. The Gryphon adored the carrot-head quite as much as he did.
Red scowled at him, but what more could he do? Jake would not be dissuaded. With a huffy little snort, Red rose and padded back to stand guard over Dani and the others.
When Jake glanced back to make sure the Gryphon wasn’t following anymore, he saw that Nixie had her wand out, which made him feel a good deal better.
Truly, he still could not believe what he had witnessed back there, her bringing Archie back to life. It was bloody unnatural. But the thought of seeing his cousin’s dazed ghost wandering along the far side of the riverbank back there made him want to puke.
He shuddered and thrust the image out of his mind. He could not afford to be distracted right now, and besides, there his cousin stood, alive and well, with the others.
Jake gazed at all of them for a moment. He might be an orphan, but right there, he thought, was his family.
And he knew he could fight any number of Headless Highlanders for their sakes. Determination filled him while the first glimmer of dawn danced along the horizon and the sun began to fill the great, invisible ley lines with power.
Taking one last, good look at his friends waiting there for him shored up his courage. Jake turned and headed for the woods, ready to do what had to be done.
Just like a real Lightrider.
Fortunately, he was one aspiring Lightrider with a past as a thief. His vast experience as a London pickpocket was about to come in handy, as he had long since mastered the art of slipping away from larger people who were trying to catch him.
Nevertheless, his heart pounded as he stepped into the woods and glanced around, his senses on high alert, the blood thudding in his veins—where he hoped it all remained by the time that this was over.
Looking around in all directions, he took a few, slow, cautious steps down the path into the Scot’s territory. The leaves crinkled under him, and the trees soughed in the night breeze.
“Hullo? Oh, Headless?” he called. “Anybody home? Thought you might want to talk after losing your friends. So sad about Jenny Greenteeth. She’s dead, you know. Oh, wait, you can’t talk. You’d need a mouth for that.”
The Headless Highlander appeared, a mighty, looming figure cloaked in fog, the bagpipe silent under his arm.
Jake stopped at a wary distance. “Oh ho, there you are. The big, braw warrior who thinks he’s brave for terrorizing a little girl! And here I thought you Highland types liked to pride yourselves on your honor. But I guess there’s a bad one in every bunch, eh? Nice skirt,” he goaded. “Maybe you can borrow one of Nixie’s sometime. So, is that the plaid of the MacGools you’ve got on? Your clan, eh? Yes…about them.” Jake narrowed his eyes. “Ask me, they got what they deserved.”
The bagpipe let out an angry burp as the Headless Highlander exchanged it for his long, deadly claymore.
Jake’s eyes widened as his gaze traveled down the length of the blade. The sword really was taller than Nixie. In fact, it was taller than him and might even have been taller than Maddox. It was hard to say in the darkness.
He couldn’t even imagine how the Scots of old could have lifted such a weapon in a battle of any duration. It dawned on him that those blokes must have been as strong as oxen.
Blimey. A bead of sweat ran down his face, but he held his ground, glancing about to check his footing all around the path and the surrounding, leaf-strewn woods. He noted the location of some rocks here and there, a slim fallen log. He could not afford to trip. The Highlander was much bigger, much stronger than he; to make up for it, he’d have to be quick and nimble.
And clever. Not to mention as obnoxious as possible.
“Provoking the spirit” was a well-known technique in psychic circles, and Jake should have known he’d have a knack for it, considering how skilled he was at provoking the living when he chose. And sometimes when he didn’t.
Just ask Dani O’Dell, he thought rather more merrily than the occasion warranted. But that was just gallows humor. In truth, he was nervous.
Very well, he was shaking in his boots.
But he refused to admit it to himself, let alone to the apparition. The angrier he could make the ghost, the better their plan would work.
“You know, instead of blaming Nixie for what happened, maybe you big, bad Bugganes should’ve blamed yourselves. I mean, really. You weren’t even strong enough to withstand the magic of a witch who’s only twelve years old! That must be so embarrassing! How many hundreds of years did you haunt that castle, only to be thrown out by a wee lass? I guess that must have stung, finding out you’re not as tough as you thought. Hmm,” he said. “You don’t look very tough to me, come to think of it. Perhaps if you had a face…”
Headless wasn’t big on conversation for obvious reasons, but Jake could have sworn he almost heard the warrior’s battle cry as he came charging at him, the giant sword poised to skewer him.
Jake darted out of the way with a pickpocket’s irksome agility, and turned, laughing. “Ha! Missed.”
Whoosh. The blade sailed above his head: Jake ducked just like he used to do from the constables. “Missed again, laddie!”
He dove to the side, then twisted to avoid another thrust.
“You’re really bad at this, aren’t you?” he chided the kilted killer. “How’d you lose your head, anyway? Take it off one night before bed and forget where you put it in the morning? Must’ve had too much of that famous Scottish whiskey—”
The Headless Highlander charged him again, his footsteps thundering across the ground, and this time, he sank
his blade into the narrow trunk of a young tree behind Jake. Splinters flew.
“Oops, missed again! Poor you.”
Jake ran past the apparition and kept taunting him, dodging the big, violent chops of the terrible claymore as he led the ghost steadily toward the edge of the woods.
Nixie, you’d better be ready, he thought. Almost there…
“Why don’t you cross over, anyway? Sweet person like you. Don’t you want to go to heaven? Oh, you’ve murdered too many people, is that it? Well, I suppose that is a problem. Don’t you like hot weather?”
Whack!
“Easy! You almost nicked me there. You’re mean!”
Jake tricked and teased and goaded the Headless Highlander, enraging him with his insults, until, at last, the apparition had followed him out past the edge of the woods. He had ordered his friends to make sure they stayed out of sight because he did not want to have to go through this again, what with the Highlander’s habit of vanishing as soon as he was seen by more than one person.
Ah, but Nixie’s plan did not require anybody else to confront the ghost directly. All it needed was just a little magic.
Any minute now…
Jake was breathing hard. “Isn’t that thing getting heavy?” he asked with cheerful insolence while the warrior menaced him, the point of the claymore weaving before his eyes.
The Scot heaved back and swung the blade, the metal flashed, and Jake leaped backward—but then, disaster!
He tripped over a stone in the field and went sprawling on his backside in the grass.
The Highlander lifted the blade high.
“Nixie, now!” Jake shouted as the towering apparition loomed over him in all his unearthly wrath, the claymore poised to slice him in half length-wise.
Jake rolled out of the way of the vicious blow that slammed down into the turf, just as a familiar voice in the distance yelled something that sounded like, “Aperio!”
At Nixie’s command, the false darkness the little witch had conjured to hide the dawn dissolved, suddenly washing the Headless Highlander in the bright rays of the sunrise.
The warrior’s fierce, missing head appeared briefly as he stood immobile with surprise; he had shaggy red hair and a big red beard, and his battle-scarred face wore a look of shock. He stood trapped in the glow of the morning sun flaring up behind him from over the horizon.
His whole brawny body started to smoke, much like Jenny Greenteeth’s had. The evil he had wreaked in all his centuries could not withstand the sun’s rays. He threw back his head and bellowed in stunned agony—realizing only then, too late, that Jake had tricked him into coming out of the shadows.
Then he turned to ash, crumbled, and blew away.
Jake stared, wide-eyed, barely daring to exhale, let alone to let himself hope that their plan had succeeded.
But it had.
Jake sat up and slowly looked around in the bright morning light. No trace remained of the last, most fierce of the Bugganes. The Headless Highlander was gone, sword and all, with naught but a final, ferocious note from his bagpipe.
“Whew!” he said, blowing his forelock out of his eyes with a big sigh of relief. Then he flopped back onto the grass in nerve-racked exhaustion, his arms wide, his heart still pounding.
In the distance, he heard his friends anxiously calling his name. They had not dared peek at the fight until that moment, for fear of scaring the Highlander away and causing their plan to fail.
Jake sat up again to show them he wasn’t lying there dead. “It’s all right, he’s gone!” He grinned and threw his fist into the air in victory.
Seeing this, a cheer went up from his companions. They all came running, everyone laughing and talking at once as they clustered around him.
“You did it!” Isabelle said.
“I’d say we all did,” he answered. “Certainly couldn’t have done it without Nixie.”
Archie and Dani pulled him to his feet, one by each hand. Red bumped him in the hip with his head like an oversized housecat, and Nixie smiled from ear to ear.
“Quite a team, eh?” the little witch ventured.
He squeezed her bony shoulder. “I’m just glad you’re on our side, missy.”
“Hear, hear!” Archie beamed at her.
“Jake, that was brave—well, either brave or mad,” Maddox said, offering his hand. “Either way, Derek would be proud.”
“Actually, Derek would be furious,” Jake said wryly. “But thanks.” He shook his hand, then gave the older boy an affectionate clap on the shoulder.
All this time, Dani was jumping up and down beside him in uncontained excitement, as she often did, talking nonstop at a hundred miles a minute. Not that much of it made any sense, Jake thought with a smile.
Meanwhile Malwort, perched on Nixie’s shoulder, kept trying to catch the itty-bitty Boneless zooming around Archie’s head.
While the kids exchanged a last round of hugs and claps on the back, Red lifted his head and crowed at the dawn like a common rooster rather than a magnificent royal Gryphon.
Everyone looked at him in surprise, then started laughing.
“What on earth is that supposed to mean?” Dani exclaimed with a quizzical glance at Isabelle.
She shrugged. “I think he wants breakfast.”
“Excellent idea! I’m starved,” Jake declared, throwing his arms around the two nearest him and steering them toward Merlin Hall. “C’mon, you lot. Let’s eat! I’d say we earned it.”
And so they went, all together.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The Crystal Ball
After staying up all night to defeat the Bugganes, everybody went straight to bed after breakfast and, consequently, missed the last full day of the Gathering. But there was no chance of them missing the farewell festivities that night—namely, the much-anticipated Crystal Ball. The gala that marked the end of the Gathering took place each year in the center of the maze, so that the Old Yew and his ancient offspring could feel included.
Jake and Archie donned the dreaded tuxedoes for the occasion. Presently, they loitered in front of Merlin Hall, waiting for the girls to finish getting ready—though that could take all night.
Looking dashing in their formal clothes, the boys leaned against one of the big stone lions that flanked the wide front steps. Hands in pockets, they watched the endless stream of guests leaving the palace and filing into the maze. It reminded Jake of how nervous he had been going in there for his Assessment. Only three days had passed, but it felt like a lifetime ago.
Meanwhile, he and his cousin chatted about the fact that the fairy market had already disappeared. All the itinerant magical vendors had packed up their wares and moved on.
“Guess we’ll see them next year,” Jake remarked.
“Say, coz, do me a favor,” Archie said abruptly. “Don’t tell my parents I died today. I think they’d be…a little upset.”
“I won’t, believe me! How are you feeling?”
“Tired. I could’ve kept sleeping. That reminds me, I had the strangest dream.”
“Oh?”
“I dreamed I was in my lab at home when Leonardo da Vinci, of all people, walked in, picked up a piece of chalk, and helped me figure out some problems with my submarine.”
“The bloke who invented the Enchanted Gallery?”
Archie gave him a long-suffering glance. “He did a lot more than just that, Jake.”
“Er, I knew that.”
“Anyway, strange…it seemed so real! Somehow I managed to wake myself up and wrote down everything he told me to fix. I’m going to try it as soon as I get home.”
“What if it works?” Jake asked. “What would that mean, do you suppose?”
Archie blanched. “I’m not sure I want to know.”
“Maybe he really came to you in a dream.”
“Jake, he’s been dead since the early 1500s.”
“So? Ghosts are obviously real.”
“But not to me. I’m a scientist.”
Jake looked at him. “Maybe the Kinderveil is lifting.”
“Please don’t say that! I don’t want any powers. It’s enough trouble having a big brain.”
“You might not have a choice,” Jake said kindly.
He didn’t want to upset his cousin after what he’d already been through today, but he instantly suspected that, if it wasn’t the Kinderveil lifting, Archie might have returned from his brush with death with the power of prophetic dreams.
Jake knew it was possible, because he had talked with other psychic-medium kids during the Gathering who had reported having gained their abilities after surviving terrible accidents or illnesses, like scarlet fever or typhus.
But he did not press the issue. He knew his cousin well enough to grasp that any sort of magical or clairvoyant ability would be completely at odds with how Archie saw himself. He was just grateful that Archie was alive.
“Hey-ho, here’s one of ours!” Archie said, sounding eager to change the subject as he gave a cheerful wave to Maddox. The young Guardian had just stepped out of the wide double doors of the entrance hall onto the top of the stairs.
“Nah, that can’t be Maddox St. Trinian,” Jake teased. “He would never put on a tuxedo.”
“Guess that means you’re coming to the ball?” Archie asked.
Maddox joined them with a shrug, resting his foot on the step above. “Not to go would be bad form.”
“I didn’t think you owned a tuxedo,” Archie said.
“It just appeared,” he said. “Whether it came from the gnomes or from Ravyn, I don’t know. At least it fits.”
“Guess we better be ready to catch Isabelle in case she swoons when she sees you,” Jake said with a grin.
Hand to brow, Archie imitated a lady fainting. “Quickly, the smelling salts!”
The boys laughed at the general silliness of females. But they all stood up the moment the young ladies appeared.
Miss Helena stood behind Isabelle, Dani, and Nixie, looking proud of her work in spite of her lingering worry over Derek’s absence. The girls looked quite fetching.