All the King's Horses (5 page)

‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Colin, and his smile told me he really was. Oh, great. Kid In Trouble At School Meets Faery Prankster.

I looked at Cathbad. ‘This is a beautiful place, sir, and it’s really … um … great talking to you, but we
have
to get home. Our grandfather is lost, and—’

‘—Your grandfather,’ said Mongan warmly. ‘Now there’s a fine mortal if ever I’ve—’

Cathbad cut him off with a glance that would have knocked anybody else flat. Then he turned to me. ‘You may indeed go home,’ he said. ‘And therein, you are fortunate. Generally, those who have seen us in our true form must stay in the Otherworld for ever. But the Protection you have been granted enables you to go back and forth between worlds, just as we do.’

Colin leaned towards me. ‘What the heck do you suppose we
did
?’ he whispered.

I put my finger on my lips. If Cathbad was going to send us home, the last thing I wanted was to slow him down by asking about details.

‘There are Rules in the Otherworld, however,’ added Cathbad. ‘And they grant the privilege of continuous visits under Protection only to those who have a mission.’ His grey eyes locked onto ours. ‘There is always a chance that mortals may
stumble
upon powers greater than they understand. The Rules allow such mortals to go and return once, but they can never come again.’

‘But if we have a mission,’ asked Colin, ‘what then?’

‘Then,’ said Cathbad gravely, ‘you may travel back and forth between worlds as many times as it takes you to fulfil your mission. And, furthermore, the Sidhe and all the lesser faeries of the Otherworld must do all that is in their power to help you accomplish it.’

Colin looked at me, and his lips said ‘Grandpa.’ I nodded, but when I turned to Cathbad, I realized all over again how grand he was, and how little we were – and I remembered how wicked faeries were about giving changelings back. I shivered again, swallowing over a dry place in my throat. ‘We
do
have a mission,’ I croaked.

‘Right,’ said Colin, in a voice as dry as mine. ‘It’s Grandpa. The
real
Grandpa.’ He took my hand and held it hard while he finished. ‘We want him back. So we need you to take us to where he is.’

‘Please,’ I added. ‘If you’d be so kind.’

Mongan whistled.

‘Peace,’ said Cathbad. ‘They don’t know what they’re asking.’

‘We do, too!’ said Colin. ‘And it’s the only thing we want, right, Sarah?’

‘Right,’ I said firmly. ‘No deep secrets, no magical powers – just Grandpa.’

Mongan raised an eyebrow at Cathbad. ‘Has it ever been done?’

‘Not willingly,’ said Cathbad. ‘And never by the young.’

‘
Please
don’t say that!’ said Colin. ‘
Everybody
says we’re too young to understand things, and it’s
not true
! If you think we’re too young or too chicken to get Grandpa back, your Protection is just like everybody else’s – it saves you the trouble of taking us seriously!’

‘The child has a point,’ said Mongan. ‘And even if he didn’t, the Rules don’t permit us to deny them what they ask.’

There was a long pause – like, forever – while Cathbad thought it over. Then he sighed and turned to us. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We will help you accomplish your mission.’

‘Hot diggity dog!’ exploded Colin. ‘That’s so
cool
!’

‘
Thank
you!
Thank
you!
Thank
you!’ I said at the same time.

Mongan stirred uncomfortably on his rock. ‘Surely, you may not be thanking us later, little ones. It’s no holiday trip you’ve asked for.’

‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘So long as Grandpa’s at the end of it.’

‘So be it,’ said Cathbad. ‘But because of your youth, we cannot take you to where your grandfather is directly. Instead, we will take you for short journeys along the road he has followed. If you find things on that road which threaten to harm you in mind or spirit, you may stop your mission, and we will help you return to your own world – as safely as we can.’

I caught Colin’s eye, and I could see we were thinking the same thing: they were planning to take us for little ‘journeys’ into the Otherworld and scare us so much that we’d never want to go back. That way, they could say they’d
offered
to take us to Grandpa, but that we’d called the whole thing off, so they’d taken us home instead.

‘Er … if it’s all the same to you,’ I said as politely as I could, ‘we’d like to meet up with Grandpa right away.’

Cathbad looked at us, and suddenly he seemed taller and darker. ‘You are in a poor position to bargain,’ he said softly. I looked away from the mist that swirled in his grey eyes to the endless green of the Outskirts – beautiful, silent, and miles from Mom, with no way of getting home on our own.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.

‘We won’t bargain any more,’ whispered Colin. ‘Short journeys are fine.’

‘That’s my sensible ones,’ said Mongan. ‘There’s dangers enough along the way without asking for more.’

‘Dangers!’ said Colin, his face lighting up. ‘You mean, real Faerie dangers, like Finn’s monster at Tara, or heroes screaming their battle cries, cutting their way through battles in those chariots with enemy heads hanging on the sides? Streams running with blood? Enchanted music? Ravens in dead trees? Don’t worry – we know all about those kinds of dangers!’

‘It’s other kinds I was thinking of,’ said Mongan, glancing at Cathbad, who was somehow the right size again. ‘No stories about them, to be sure, but none the less fearsome for that. With battles, enchantments and such, the Rules are still the Rules. But—’

‘—That’s OK,’ said Colin, though anybody could tell he’d prefer battles and enchantments. ‘Grandpa’s taught us to use our heads as well as our fists. No matter what kind of danger there is, we’ll pitch in, won’t we Sarah?’

‘Sure,’ I said firmly. ‘And once you’ve taken us to Grandpa, you won’t have to worry about us any more; he’ll help us find our way home.’

‘The way home’s the problem, surely,’ said Mongan, shaking his head. ‘Worse and worse, the further you travel. Suppose when you find your grandfather, he can’t help you?’

‘Oh, but he will!’ I said. ‘He’s not afraid of
anything
!’

‘He surely wasn’t,’ said Mongan, ‘but – well, on your heads be it. Shall we begin?’

Cathbad’s white eyebrows rose. ‘I’m surprised you want to accompany them, my lord. I had planned to summon a minion for these early stages, there being so little danger.’

Colin stared at Mongan. ‘You’re a lord?’

‘Surely – one of the great Sidhe, son of Manannan mac Lir
¹
himself,’ said Mongan. ‘But I try not to let that little accident of birth get in my way. The other Sidhe miss a lot of fun being too proud to leave the Otherworld. So if you’ll have me, I’ll guide you, Children of Lugh.’

‘Why are we Children of Lugh?’ said Colin. ‘Our father’s name was Peter.’

Mongan grinned. ‘Lugh is the faery of light, and you two – thanks to your grandfather – have been enlightened. Come.’

He stepped forward and held out a hand to
each
of us. I hung back, not feeling enlightened at all, and listening to something in me – the part that Grandpa said you should
always
listen to – that said there was more to be afraid of than some monster they might throw in to scare us. There was something we didn’t understand.

‘Come
on
!’ hissed Colin. ‘If we chicken out now, we’ll never find Grandpa!’

Maybe we didn’t
have
to understand. Many a time, Grandpa had always said, people thought so much they never did what needed to be done. I looked at Mongan and Colin, took a deep breath – then reached for their hands. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

The minute our hands touched, there was a whoosh of something that sounded like music; when it ended, we weren’t in the Outskirts any more. We were standing in the living room of our house on Maple Street, only it was the Burkes’ now, of course, so it had their furniture in it. Totally ordinary. What a come-down.

‘What on earth are we doing
here
?’ said Colin, sounding disappointed.

‘Beginning your mission,’ said Mongan. ‘What else would we be doing?’

‘Shh!’ I whispered. ‘Mr Burke is snoozing on the sofa. We’ll wake him up.’

‘No, we won’t,’ said Mongan. ‘Not being heard is part of being invisible.’

‘But we’re not invisible,’ I objected. ‘I can see you.’

‘That’s a little effect I throw in for beginners, because they find it hard to work with people they can’t see.’ He turned to Colin. ‘Now, down to business. See those keys?’ He pointed to the table next to the kitchen door. ‘Pick them up.’

Colin gave me a ‘what’s-going-on?’ look and scooped the keys out of the ashtray that was sitting on the table. Just as he shoved them into his pocket, Mrs Burke hurried downstairs. ‘What time did you say you’d meet Harry for that round of golf?’ she asked, jiggling Mr Burke.

Mr Burke sat up with a snort. ‘Huh? Oh, golf. I said 3:30.’

‘You’d better hurry, then. It’s 3:15.’

‘Three fifteen!’ Mr Burke jumped up, grabbed his golf bag out of the corner and started for the door, glancing at the table, feeling in his pockets … ‘Um,’ he said, looking a little sheepish, ‘you wouldn’t happen to remember where I put the car keys, would you?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Mrs Burke, ‘not again!’

She sighed, and they started hunting. After a minute, Mr Burke frowned and hurried back to the table where the keys had been. ‘Funny,’
he
muttered, moving the magazines next to the ashtray, ‘I was
sure
I’d put them …’ He went on into the kitchen.

‘Quick, Colin,’ said Mongan. ‘Put them back.’

Colin plopped the keys down just before Mrs Burke got to the table herself. She clicked her tongue. ‘Here they are, dear.’

He hurried back into the room. ‘Where were they?’

She pointed to the ashtray. ‘Right under your nose.’

Colin laughed as Mr Burke dashed out the door. ‘That’s what Mom says when she finds things we’ve been hunting for. But when she forgets where she’s put her glasses, we have to turn the house upside—’ He stared at Mongan. ‘Oh! Is that what happens? You guys … ?’

‘Strictly speaking,’ said Mongan, ‘that’s out of our realm. Now and again, of course, we filch something from somebody that’s annoyed us, which has the same effect. Most of the time, though, mortals forget things all on their own – Come.’

He reached out a hand to each of us, and next thing we knew, we were near the centre of town, on a street that had laundromats and stores with ‘Goods Bought and Redeemed’ in their windows on one side, and garages on the other. It was OK
–
Mom took our car to one of the garages, and sometimes the mechanic gave us each a third of his Three Musketeers bar – but it wasn’t a place you’d want to walk without a grown-up, unless you were invisible.

Colin glanced at three teenagers in black jackets who were leaning against a boarded-up shop and looking at the hubcaps of a parked car. ‘Why would a faery come here?’

Mongan grinned. ‘Because this is prime territory. Here, take my hands.’

We did, and I thought we’d start to spin again, but he was just keeping track of us as he wove his way across the street. There were a lot of cars, and of course, nobody could …

‘Mongan?’ I said. ‘Are you
sure
they can’t see us? The guy in that green Chevvy …’

Mongan grinned. ‘He just feels us. Some mortals know when there are faeries around.’

‘Oh,’ said Colin. ‘Like at night, when you don’t hear or see anything, but you know?’

‘Surely,’ said Mongan. ‘Though it’s not always us. Ghosts have their rights, too – This way now.’ And he opened the door to a laundromat, letting out a smell of soap and steam.

I wiped off my glasses and looked at the clock on the wall. It said 3:15. Of course, clocks in
laundromats
never work, but still … I hurried to catch up with the others.

Mongan was opening a dryer door. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘each of you pull out a sock.’

We each did; the socks must have been in there a long time, because they sort of snapped, and their fur stuck out. ‘These OK?’

‘Not them,’ said Mongan. ‘They match.’ He frowned. ‘Colin, m’lad, you’re a mathematical one, they say. What’re the odds of forgetting to put two
matching
socks in a dryer?’

‘That depends on how many socks were there in the first place.’

I swapped one of the brown socks in my hand for a blue one and shut the dryer door. ‘It looks like about a week’s laundry. So say, seven pairs.’

‘One in thirteen,’ said Colin. ‘If each pair was a different colour to start with. But if there were four brown pairs and three blue pairs—’

‘—You’re making my head spin,’ grunted Mongan. ‘Take my hands, and we’re off.’

‘What about these?’ I said, holding up my socks.

Mongan grinned, took the two socks and threw them high into the air. As they started to come back down, they disappeared. ‘There,’ he said, chuckling. ‘Off to sock limbo.’

‘Where’s that?’ I asked.

‘It’s where all the forgotten socks go – and a fine time they have of it.’

‘Wow!’ said Colin. ‘I’ve gotta try that!’ He opened the dryer, but Mongan stopped him.

‘No you don’t, lad. That was just a demonstration; any more’s against the Rules.’

‘Aw, come on,’ said Colin, reaching in. ‘Just one!’

Mongan grabbed his hand. ‘I said, that’s against the Rules!’ He grabbed me, too, and I braced myself for the whoosh.

But this time, there was no whoosh. First, there was nothing at all – just me, sort of floating. Then slowly, slowly, things began to appear, floating too, but just out of reach. For a moment, I thought, my gosh, he’s shut us into the dryer! But it was much bigger than a dryer, and the things around me were moving too slowly … no,
I
was moving, in sort of a spiral, and going the other way was everything we’d ever hunted for – riding crops, curry-combs, boot pulls, lead-ropes, homework papers, library books, lunch money, spoons, mittens, barrettes, Tinkertoys, safety pins. I began to get dizzy and sort of sick, but I didn’t dare close my eyes, because something kept telling me that in the middle of all that stuff there was something I
had
to find, but I couldn’t remember what it was. So
I
stared, hoping that something would remind me … but gradually, everything faded, and there was nothing again, and suddenly I had a terrible feeling that Mongan and Cathbad had forgotten
us
, and we were lost for ever, like all the other stuff, which meant no matter how hard Mom looked, she’d never find us, and we’d never get back …