‘Come in a minute. I’d like to talk to you.’
He walked to his desk and eased himself stiffly into the big chair behind it; I stood on the other side of it, looking at the pattern on the rug and missing my hair.
For maybe a whole minute, he didn’t say anything; downstairs, I could hear Colin fidgeting around in the hall. Then he cleared his throat. ‘About your mother and your grandfather.’ He picked up his pen, not paying attention to it. ‘Er … how are things at home?’
All sorts of thoughts crowded into my head – Mom crying as she paid the bills, the way Grandfather smiled at Grandmother in the picture, Grandpa getting worse and worse and nobody knowing what to do, Grandfather and Colin at the Museum of Science, Mr Crewes, boarding schools – but they were so jumbled that all I could do was stare at the law books and the trophies and the desk, and his fingers, clumsily screwing and unscrewing the top of the pen. Finally I realized he’d think I was an idiot if I didn’t answer, so I shook myself and said ‘Everything’s fine, thank you.’
He looked up, and for a second I was afraid he saw I’d lied – but he gave me an awkward smile and said, ‘That’s good to hear.’ Then he nodded the way he nodded at Jack when he wanted him to go, and I escaped.
‘Criminy,’ said Colin as soon as we were outside. ‘The hair and stuff isn’t that awful – just different. You don’t have to look so—’
‘– Shut up,’ I said. ‘Race you to the end of the boardwalk.’
His red jacket flashed as he took off down the lawn, but I passed him just before we got to the edge of the beach, and he knew better than to try to push past me on the boardwalk, because it was narrow and half-covered with ice and drifted snow. When we got to the end of it, we jumped off and plopped down in the snowy sand, panting and shivering. The wind had died down, but the sky was wild and grey, and the waves were dark and fierce and wonderful.
Colin looked at me. ‘Something’s still bugging you,’ he said. ‘Is it Them? Grandfather kept losing things all day. At first I thought it was funny, but then—’
‘– It’s not funny!’ I picked up a piece of driftwood and started scratching angry circles in the sand. ‘All They do is play around!’
‘That’s what I’ve been saying all along!’ he said, looking sore. ‘And every time I’ve said it, you’ve said we have to be patient, or that there’s nothing to the changeling theory—’
‘OK, OK – I was wrong!’ I said, breaking the stick over my knee. ‘You’ve been right all along! There has to be something to it – nobody else understands, and nobody will help but us, and I really, really goofed just now, because Grandfather asked how things were, and maybe he would have helped if I’d told him – but I said the wrong thing, so now we have to depend on Them and Their little journeys, and Their own sweet time! It’s so dumb!’ I threw the three pieces of stick over the dune, one by one, as hard as I could. ‘You stupid Faeries!’ I shouted, trying not to cry. ‘Take us where he is!’
There was a strange sound, and I turned around to see what on earth Colin was doing. But Colin wasn’t there. Hey, come on! I said. But it was like the words I wanted had got stuck in my head; all that came out was gibberish. I tried again. Colin? No words; only a silence like cotton in my ears. Colin! Colin! I started towards the dunes to look for him … but there were no dunes. Instead, there were dark cliffs, so steep and so high I couldn’t see their tops. And in front of them was a beach. Not Grandfather’s beach, which was perfectly smooth except for driftwood and seaweed; some other beach, with rocks jutting out of the sand, and towers of stone looming like castles out of waves that smashed against them in fountains of spray. Faerie, then. Only it wasn’t at all like the other parts of Faerie we’d been to, which were green and beautiful. Here there was no colour. No wind. Just pounding waves and suddenly, a huge bank of fog, smothering the stone castles, the rocks, the cliffs, me … Colin! Colin!
Somewhere in front of me, I heard voices, half-wailing, half-singing. I stared as hard as I could, but there was nothing but grey. Stretching out my hands, I inched forward, sensing the rocks all around me, but somehow not running into any of them. The roar of surf got louder, and I knew I must be close to the water. My fingers touched something. One of the rocks, probably. I slid my hands along it to see how big it was – then I snatched them back, because it didn’t feel the way a wet rock should. It was soft, and it shuddered.
Above me, a harp played a strange rippling chord, and the sound swirled around me in a breeze that melted the fog into scraps of clouds. I looked up and down the beach … and where there had been rocks, there were people, all silent and still. An old woman encrusted with barnacles, shaking as the waves broke against her. A man half-buried in wet sand that made channels on each side of him where the surf swept back out. A woman sunk up to her waist in sand that swept around her and buried the man behind her up to his shoulders. And more, and more, as far as I could see, all part in and part out of the sand, hardly even seeming alive until you looked at their eyes, which blinked from time to time. But they didn’t seem to see anything; they just stared out to sea, singing a moaning sort of lullaby. I looked out at the sea myself, groggily wondering what was there.
A wave crashed onto the beach and wooshed around my knees, winding long brown ropes of kelp around my legs and leaving my feet half-buried in sand as it slid back. Stooping down, I picked up a couple of pieces of the kelp, so I could pop little nodules when I got back to my bucket and pail … wait, it was winter, so no bucket and pail. Just people. But when I looked down the beach again, there were no people. They’d turned back into stones, or at least most of them had. One was left, and it was strange, because the others had all been grey, and he was wearing a red jacket. He looked lonely, so I wrenched my feet out of the sand and staggered towards him, holding out a piece of kelp. He smiled a faraway smile, and we stood amongst the rocks, popping nodules and watching the fog settle around us again. The tide was coming in; the waves sneaked up and swirled around the rocks … and around us … a little deeper each time. Somewhere inside me, a voice said I should move back and take the red jacket person with me, but I couldn’t think why; the sandy water around my legs was a lot warmer than the air.
I heard a harp again, much further away this time, but it sort of woke me up, though I hadn’t been sleeping. I dropped the rope of kelp I’d been holding and took the red jacket person’s hand, whispering home, home! But the word wouldn’t come out, and even in my head, it didn’t mean anything. I pulled him with me as I turned around and started towards the cliffs, hoping I’d remember what home was if I stopped looking at the sea – but after we’d staggered a couple of steps, the red jacket person stopped dead, tightening his grip so hard it hurt. In front of us, a tall rock was moving in the fog … leaning, pulling, struggling out of the sand as the white bubbles of a wave washed against it. The faraway harp played again – and then its music was drowned out by a terrible sucking sound as the rock broke out of the sand. Only it wasn’t a rock. It was a man in leather armour, and the sword in his left hand was as long as I was tall. Over his right shoulder, he carried a huge shield that shone bronze-gold. A hero, buzzed my mind.
He stared at the waves, brushing away the fog that swirled around him with his sword. Then he turned his head and saw us. In a terrible flash of silver, his right arm swung his shield into position, and he raised his sword, striding towards us. We backed away – right into a rock. He could have cut us apart a thousand times, but instead, he stood still, staring at us until he blurred around the edges. A harp played chords and chords and chords, and I struggled to make my mind work. A hero. Cuchulain. Finn … no, Cuchulain’s hair was two colours, and Finn’s was really blond, not grey, and both of them were young. This hero was old, and he looked like someone I’d seen in a dream.
The hero’s green eyes clouded over, and he walked slowly towards the grey sea, then into it. Be careful! I shouted. But no words came, and he waded in further and further, until he reached the place whe
re the waves curled over and broke. Then in a huge burst of foam, he slashed at the waves with his sword, staggering as they smashed over his shield.
The person in the red jacket jerked my hand, and his face told me he wanted to help the hero. Something about that didn’t make sense, but I nodded, and we splashed into the grey waves, kicking them, shoving them back with our hands. Behind us, the rocks moaned louder and louder, until the air all around was filled with howls and screams and crashing surf. A big wave swept me onto a rock, and I stood up, looking for the hero, but there were breakers so high, all I could see was the flash, flash, flash of his silver sword. Then something bumped me – it was the person in the red jacket, sweeping out to sea. I grabbed him, and we struggled towards the beach through waves that tried to suck us back and rocks that shrugged us off as we tried to hold on to them. As we staggered onto the beach, we both stumbled over something, and as we fell I saw what looked like an arm reaching pleadingly towards us out of the sand. When we got up, though, I realized it was just a long, thin edge of a buried rock. The red jacket person reached for a long piece of kelp that had wound around it, and popped a few pieces. Neither of us moved; standing still felt too good. The moans were turning back to a lullaby, softer and softer as the waves grew higher and the rocks disappeared.
Somewhere quite close, a horse whinnied. I straightened up and listened; there shouldn’t be horses on the beach in winter. Maybe it had gotten loose. Or maybe it had thrown its rider. I took a few steps, and so did the person in the red jacket, which meant he knew something about horses. Together, we looked up and down the thin strip of beach. There was nothing there.
Then suddenly there was something there. A huge breaker rolled in; just before it crashed, it became a horse’s crest with a shimmering silver mane, and a gigantic grey horse burst out of the dark water that smashed onto the sand. On its back, riding as if he were a part of it, was a red-haired man in a sea-green cloak that billowed out behind him. The horse tossed its head and reared, neighing as the next wave rolled in behind it, but its rider brought it down with a tremendous splash, and trotted it towards us through the surf. It moved as if it were on springs, with its tail high and its nostrils flaring, and when it got near us, it sidled away. The rider put a hand on its knotted neck. ‘Steady there.’
I heard him, and understood. But that wasn’t all. Something stirred in my mind, like when you first wake up in a strange place and you suddenly know where you are. I looked at the person in the red jacket, hoping he’d give me some clue …
‘Colin!’ I shouted. And this time, the shout didn’t stay in my head. ‘Oh, Colin!’
‘Sarah!’ he whooped. ‘Boy, am I ever glad to see you! I’ve been looking all—’
The horse half-reared, and we both quieted right down. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said to the rider. ‘It’s just that it was so foggy, and we lost each other, and … oh.’ I stopped, because his sea-green eyes had fastened on to mine. They were full of wild and mysterious things – the centres of hurricanes, the beginnings of winds, sea trenches so deep that light never reached them – and they were as powerful as his horse, except in a different and much scarier way. As I looked into them, a fog cleared in my mind, and I saw flickering, dancing faerie silhouettes … and that cloak, that red hair and beard, that half-tamed horse cantering through rings of bonfires to a cave where a Seer waited.
‘Manannan Mac Lir,’ I whispered.
‘Enbharr,’ whispered Colin, almost at the same time. For a moment, we just stared – not stupidly, the way we’d been staring before, but in a kind of wonder that there could be something so magnificent, even in the Otherworld. Then I nudged Colin, and we bowed.
A seagull flapped close over our heads, and all at once, there were hundreds of them, wheeling and diving and squabbling, the way they always do … except there had been no seagulls here before. Manannan glanced at them with a grim sort of smile; then looked down at us. ‘You are a long way from your world, Children of Lugh,’ he said.
I nodded and looked at Colin, but he shook his head and gave me a ‘you-say-it’ look. So I swallowed a couple of times and said ‘Um … could you send us back? We’ve been gone an awfully long time, and I’m afraid Grandmother and Grandfather Madison will worry.’
‘If you could be sent back,’ he said, ‘you would be there now. The harp called and called, but you were too far away to be sent for.’
Colin grabbed my hand, and I held his tight. ‘You mean, we’re stuck here?’
‘No, no,’ said Manannan quickly. ‘I mean only that I cannot send you back. I was not sure, when I first saw you, that I would even be able to take you back, for like the stones, you knew neither me nor each other.’
‘But we do now!’ said Colin. ‘For sure! Absolutely! Isn’t that enough?’
‘It is enough,’ said Manannan. ‘I – we – can restore you to your world.’
We breathed a tremendous sigh of relief. Colin looked up and down the beach and shivered. ‘I’ve never even dreamed there were places like this.’
‘I’m sure you have not,’ said Manannan. ‘This is no land for children, waking or dreaming. Even the Sidhe shun it; of all the Faer Folk, only I have the power to be sure of leaving it, once come. If, indeed …’ He glanced at the stones, and when he looked back at us, I saw something I’d never seen in faery eyes before.
Enbharr struck out at a gull that landed nearby, then began to dig a furious hole in the sand with his front right hoof. He stopped when Manannan tapped his shoulder, but Colin and I took one look at his bobbing head and flat-back ears and stepped away.
Manannan nodded. ‘As you see, I cannot keep him here – he fights the danger, though he neither sees nor understands it. Up behind me, Son of Lugh; the lady will go in front.’
There was no time to be afraid; the ringed hand was already flashing down. A minute later, Colin was behind him, I was in front, and Enbharr was walking towards the open beach. He was perfectly collected, and the wild look had left his eyes; but muscles underneath me coiled at every stride.
‘Oh, please,’ I said, looking up over my shoulder, ‘let him out, just a little.’
Manannan’s eyes met mine, and suddenly he smiled. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I see they left you your courage, though they took your hair.’ He spoke to the horse in the language Cathbad used, and in an instant, we were cantering, sending up flocks of shore birds in front of us. Enbharr felt like a bird himself; his strides grew longer and longer, but he moved so smoothly his feet hardly seemed to touch the sand. Faster, faster, nearer and nearer the water … sea-foam whirled around us, and the sound of hoofbeats was drowned in the splash of surf – then Manannan laughed, and we turned straight into the waves. I gasped and put my arm in front of my face, but it wasn’t at all what I’d thought it would be. Enbharr didn’t swim; he galloped over the waves, and through them, as if he were part of the sea. Whitecaps flashed around us, and swells rolled under us, but somehow we never got wet, just thundered on and on, until finally land rose up in front of us where no land had been before, all surrounded by mist.
We burst onto the shore in a splash of foam and came to a prancing halt. ‘Your way lies there,’ said Manannan, pointing. ‘You will have no trouble finding it.’
He was right: there was a blaze of furry light behind the dunes, which meant somebody had turned on the floodlights at Grandfather’s house. Even if we missed the boardwalk, we could get back easily. Yet, for some reason, I was so shivery when he lifted us down onto the sand that I began to wonder if they had taken my courage when they cut my hair. I reached out to stroke Enbharr. My hand slid down the sweaty neck – and touched Colin’s.
‘Your people are looking for you,’ said Manannan. ‘We must be off.’
But neither of us could speak; we just stroked Enbharr again and again, wanting him to stay – not only because he was beautiful, but because he was alive and animal and warm.
Manannan looked down in the gathering darkness. ‘The horror of the land to which y
ou journeyed lingers long after one has left it … but your fear will fade, in time.’ A light flashed very near us, and we jumped back as Enbharr reared. Manannan rose with him, lifting one hand to us as he urged him forward. ‘Farewell, loyal Children of Lugh.’
‘Goodbye,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
In three long strides they were in the surf; then they plunged into the breakers and disappeared. As we looked after them, a beam of light swept by us, then switched directions and stopped, making huge shadows in front of us on the sand.
‘Colin! Sarah!’
We turned around, half blinded; the light-beam dropped, and we saw Grandfather Madison limping towards us with an expression I’d never seen on his face before. We both ran to him, and he put his arms around us as well as he could, holding a flashlight and his cane.
‘I should never have let you come down here at this time of year,’ he said. ‘As soon as I saw the fog over the ocean, I came out, but by the time I got here, it was so thick I could hardly find my way.’ He pulled the perfectly folded handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his suit and wiped Colin’s face; then we started back. It felt like it took us for ever, but eventually, we got to the house, and there was Grandmother, frantic because we hadn’t come back, and Paddy and Jack, frantic because they’d realized Grandfather had gone out alone to look for us. They lit a huge fire, and Maureen and Molly brought in sandwiches and gallons of cocoa with whipped cream and marshmallows, and everything was all right again, except I sort of thought Grandmother should have been worried about Grandfather instead of fussing over the way my new haircut had gotten sand and salt-spray in it. He’d had a lot of trouble walking in the deep sand, and when we’d gotten to the boardwalk, he’d slipped so much because of his street shoes and his cane, he’d had to let go of Colin’s hand. He didn’t complain, of course, but he let Jack help him sit down in his big chair, which he usually didn’t, and something about the way he stared into the fire after we’d eaten made me give him a real hug when we were sent up to bed, instead of my usual kiss.
All the King's Horses Page 13