Bound In Blue: Book One Of The Sword Of Elements (10 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I spent most of the night too excited to sleep.
The
Excalibur—sword of legend and magic—was wrapped in a t-shirt in my underwear drawer.

How cool is that?

I was up and ready for school too early, but there was less chance of running into Peter’s parents if I left at an unexpected time. I parked in the half empty lot and was dropping my books off in my locker when a dry voice said, “How wonderful it is to see a student arrive on time these days.”

My heart jumped and pink sparkles danced across my vision. An older woman with short grey hair stood in the classroom doorway across from my locker.

“Oh, hi, Mrs . . .” The teacher seemed familiar, but I couldn’t think of her name.

The woman cocked her head at me like a bird. “Come.” She motioned for me to enter the classroom. “I would like to discuss something with you.”

“OK.” I followed her and sat down at a desk in the front row. She remained standing.

“I am Cailleach,” she introduced herself. “I am taking over Senior English for the rest of the term.” I fidgeted in my seat as she fell silent and stared at me with round, strangely opaque eyes. There was a strange flapping sound. Out of the corner of my eye I caught the impression of white wings beating against one of the windows, but when I turned to look, there was nothing there.

“Calm yourself, Miss Lynne,” she murmured. “There is much we need to discuss.”

The woman tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and I realized I did know her. “You were there!” I said in surprise.

The woman frowned, but before either of us could speak, Miko poked her head in through the open doorway.

“I thought I saw you come in here. We need to . . .” Miko faltered. Rushing forward and grabbing me by the wrist, she pulled me out of the classroom. “I need Rhi right away!”

“Sorry,” I muttered as I passed the woman. “I need to go.”

Ms. Cailleach never spoke a word, but I imagined I felt her watching us all the way down the hall until we turned a corner. We were inside the nearest bathroom before Miko slowed down.

“What were you doing with her?” she demanded.

I pulled away and rubbed at my wrist—the fairy’s black-tipped nails had left crescent-shaped marks on my skin. “She said her name was Ms. Cailleach. She’s the new English teacher.”

“No, no, no!” Miko had her hair pulled into a high ponytail and it was shaking back and forth furiously. “Not
Ms
. Cailleach, just Cailleach.” She stressed the pronunciation of the name—
kaliex
. “That was the Ancient Owl, the White Woman, the Great Hag!”

“What are you talking about?”

Miko looked like she wanted to strangle me. “Don’t you know anything? Think of the eternal archetypes: Maiden, Mother, Crone. Every culture in the world fears the Crone.”

I leaned back against the side of one of the stalls. “A Crone or
the
Crone?”

More exaggerated shrugging and eye rolling. “How should I know?  The Celts called her Cailleach, but she has other names in other places. Maybe there’s one. Maybe there’s a whole bunch. Who cares? She’s Beira, the Queen of Winter, and she rises at Samhain to bring death to the world!”

Great.

I went to the sink and splashed some water on my face. “I’ve seen her before.”

“What?”

I watched Miko through the mirror. “She came to the hospital the day my mother died. I didn’t recognize her at first because her hair was in a long braid that she had wrapped around her waist.”

Miko was pacing now. “Cailleach cut her hair? That
has
to mean something.”

I grabbed some paper towel and patted my face dry. “Like what?”

She stopped and frowned. “I don’t know. Cutting hair can be a way to show grief or begin a new phase of life. Sometimes hair holds power—think of Samson or Rapunzel.” Miko snorted. “I finally caught that cartoon on DVD, by the way. All the parents who took their kiddies to see it would wet themselves if they knew Rapunzel was actually a serial killer who used her hair to open locks from the inside.”

I scrunched the paper towel into a ball. “Please don’t ever,
ever
tell me anything that horrible
ever
again.” I shuddered. “So Cailleach is going to kill us all in our sleep? Or should I be more worried about Cinderella showing up to take us out with Uzis?”

“You really don’t know anything, do you.” It wasn’t a question. “Cailleach isn’t evil. She just
is
the same way winter
is
—and just as dangerous. Let the witch do her thing and don’t get in her way.” Miko smirked at me. “And I don’t know about Cinderella, but Snow White was a
baobhan sith
who used her fingernails to slit her victim’s throats.”

She dodged the paper ball I threw at her face.

I opened the door a crack and peeked out, but the hallway was empty. “C’mon.”

Miko followed me into the hall. “Taliesin did say that once word started to spread about you, others would come.”

“But how would she even know?”

“She knew Viviane. And most high-level Greylanders have their ways. Are there owls in the barns at your place?”

I thought of the beating of wings at the window. “Yeah.”

“Owls are sacred to Cailleach. Maybe that’s how she found out.”

Owl spies—it gets better and better.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Miko had somehow scored Taliesin’s Jag so we left my car in the lot. Miko drove too fast and had a tendency to grind through the gears. I hoped she was casting some sort of glamour over us because she would get her license taken away if we passed a cop.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

She grinned. “I think we need to eat breakfast and then drop a whole lot of money on crap we’ll never wear.”

I grinned back. “Agreed.”

A few minutes later, we were sitting in the only restaurant at the Center open for breakfast. The rest of the complex was empty except for senior citizens doing a walking class and a few women with babies in strollers waiting for the stores to open. I’d ordered waffles and Miko was devouring an obscene mound of bacon, sausage, and egg.

Maybe Peter’s right about the superhero metabolism.

“So this Cailleach, have you ever met her before?”

Miko shook her head and mumbled something around a mouthful of sausage.

I laughed. “What?’

She gulped down some juice and swallowed. “Sorry. I told you magic makes you hungry.”

“You were doing magic?”

She arched her eyebrow at me. “Interesting that you couldn’t tell. To use sci-fi parlance, I was cloaking us from the moment we left Cailleach until we sat down here. We were a couple of football jocks at the school and then two senior citizens doing the speed limit in a Jetta.”

It felt like ants were walking across my back. “So Cailleach is big time dangerous as opposed to run of the mill, every day dangerous then?”

Miko snorted. “Who
isn’t
in our world? The question is whether she’s dangerous to you. She came to see Viviane when she died, so that’s a plus. Maybe she cut her hair in mourning. Your mother was a real big deal once upon a time.”

“I know what Taliesin said but what could she want with me?”

“Are you kidding? The Lady of the Lake called you her child. You have a mysterious, unknown power. The great Taliesin is frightened of you. Even Morgan-le-friggin-fay accepts you! Everyone is going to try to use you to their advantage.”

I dropped my fork as the waffles heaved in my stomach.

“Whoa,” Miko said in alarm, “are you OK?”

I nodded but didn’t trust myself to speak.

Miko shook her head. “Sorry, but Viviane was cruel to not tell you about any of this. She must have known how dangerous it would be for you once she was gone.”

I didn’t answer until I was sure the waffles weren’t going to make a reappearance. “A test of fate,” I murmured.

“Huh?”

“Something Goodfellow said to me. Maybe Mom wasn’t sure what to do and she decided to leave it to fate.”

Miko gnawed on a piece of bacon. “Maybe.” Shaking her head and dropping the bacon, the fairy pushed her plate away. “Let’s talk about something else. Me first. Is Peter as much of a boy scout as he seems?”

“More.”

“Too bad. Though I suppose it would be a step up from my last two boyfriends.”

“Why? What were they like?”

Miko held up two black-nailed fingers as she counted. “Boyfriend number one—psychopath. Boyfriend number two—vampire.”

Vampire and psychopath aren’t mutually inclusive?

“Vampires are real?”

“Unfortunately. There are a lot of different blood-loving creatures—like our friend Snow White—but true vampires are rare and most of them keep a low profile. All those books and movies mean even the stupidest human knows how to pick one out and kill it.”

I couldn’t help myself. “So what are they like?”

Miko rolled her eyes. “Forget all the crap in all the teen paranormal romance books you’ve
ever
read. I wish they would. Vamps have bought into their own press in the last few years; they all think they’re tortured and misunderstood. The truth is they just like to drink blood. They don’t even need to. They could get by just fine on cheeseburgers and pizza if they wanted. The one I dated even had acne.”

I sputtered and tried not to lose the mouthful of cranberry juice I’d just sipped. “So why did you date him then?”

Miko looked embarrassed. “I hate to admit it, but I bought into the whole tortured soul routine too. It was before I left home. Business was bad. Dad wasn’t taking it well. Dad was taking it out on me with his fists. The guy with the really white teeth who played bass in a punk band seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“What happened?”

She grinned. “Well, you know the story. Boy meets girl. Boy turns out to be a vampire. Boy tries to eat girl. Girl kicks boy in the nuts.”

I knew I was opening myself up to all kinds of ridicule, but I couldn’t help it. “And werewolves?” I asked eagerly.

“Dirty. Hairy. Smelly. More interested in camping than killing anyone. They usually end up on the west coast and become snowboarders. And forget the turning at every full moon thing. They can’t control it, but most of them only turn once a year or so when there’s a supermoon.”

“Is that even a real thing?”

“Of course, dummy. Even though I had to lurk around your crummy school to flush you guys out, I graduated early and even have a few college credits.” She straightened in her seat and pointed her finger at me. “A supermoon—or ‘perigee moon’ as we Astronomy 101 grads call it—is the moon when it is closest in its orbit to the Earth.”

“And what about the psychopath?”

Miko’s smile faded away. “Nothing much to say. Psycho liked his knives. Cut me up outside of a nightclub we were partying at—said I was flirting with the bartender and he was going to teach me a lesson.”

Shock was like losing all my colors at once. “What happened?”

Miko’s eyes glittered. “I survived and made sure he’d never get close enough to anyone to ever do that again. A little fairy glamour makes him look like he’s covered in scars and boils to any girl he shows an interest in.” She hesitated and then passed a hand over her face. The jagged scar sweeping from the corner of her mouth to her ear was angry red against the pale gold of her skin. “He gave me the idea.”

I swallowed hard. “I’m so sorry.”

Another pass of her hand and the scar was hidden under glamour. “Don’t be. He paid for what he did. I call it poetic justice.”

After a few minutes of silence, we settled the bill and went into the mall. As we wandered in and out of the stores, our good moods began to return. We shopped and laughed as if we weren’t a wingless fairy and a dangerous anomaly.

For one precious day, we pretended moms didn’t lie and boys didn’t hurt.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I didn’t follow Miko to the mansion when she dropped me off at my car, even though I’d said I would. A day at the mall had made me feel normal again and I wasn’t sure I wanted to re-enter Taliesin’s world. The thought of what Miko did to the guy who scarred her was proof that it was strange and dangerous.

A week went by and each morning it took more pills to make the pain in my head go away. I missed Peter. I stayed away from the empty guesthouses even though Old Tom had locked them up again. He’d shaken his head at the sight of the rotting seaweed in the bathtub, but hadn’t commented. I wasn’t even sure he’d told the Larsens. As far as he was concerned, his horses weren’t bothered so there was no problem. Peter texted that he’d reminded Taliesin about it too, but the bard hadn’t come up with any answers.

But it was the dream that kept me from returning to Taliesin. Maybe it was just superstition, but the holly above my door seemed to have made a difference and each night the details became clearer. I was convinced at least some of it was an actual memory. Not Tynan, of course, but the other elements seemed so real. In the dream I was about three years old—the same age as when we came to live at Windfield. Maybe my childish brain had somehow interpreted the day I was given to Viviane into a vivid dream.

Which means the woman in my dream might be my birth mother.

I was almost grateful to have school to distract me. Cailleach turned out to be an excellent teacher and didn’t seek me out again. The rest of my teachers continued to call on me to answer questions and give my opinion. They weren’t the only ones to embrace the new and more visible me; kids who’d never spoken to me before were suddenly acting like my friends. I even turned down a couple of guys who wanted to “hang out” on the weekend. I didn’t feel ready for that much attention.

Miko, Daley, and Tynan no longer bothered showing up at Eastdale—they’d all been homeschooled by Rowan and had graduated ages ago. Miko kept me up to date via text. Taliesin was disappointed I hadn’t returned. The harp was silent on any new recruits. Peter was training with Daley and the other Protectors. He’d told his parents he had football practice before and after school and was crashing with one of his buddies who lived closer. Reading between the lines, Peter and Miko were spending a lot of time together.

By lunch on Friday, the strain of all the attention was wearing me out and I longed to be invisible again.

Not all the time, but I could use a break.

I paused with my hand on the cafeteria doors. Lunch was in full swing; it sounded like a pack of wild animals consuming their prey. I’d somehow disappeared for most of my life so I could probably manage it again for one lunch hour. I closed my eyes and tried to find Mom’s voice, but fluorescent yellow panic filled me when I couldn’t remember what she sounded like. Grasping for a memory, I saw her pale, frightened eyes as she hid us from the silver-haired man.

Rhiannon, listen to me. We cannot be seen. We must be small, so very small together. Hide, Rhiannon, hide. Hide in the shadows and be still and silent.

The words were the spell and a veil of blue mist closed around me. Opening my eyes, I pushed on the doors.

Not a single head turned. A guy who’d asked me out just that morning bumped into me as he walked out. Mumbling an apology, his eyes slid over me as if he’d already forgotten I was there.

Lacey entered the cafeteria from behind me. “Hey,” she said and then stopped and stared at me. “You’re doing it again. Fading or whatever.” She was still immune to it.

“I wanted to see if I could control it, but it's getting harder. It’s strange, but I think it was something my mom did to me and now it's beginning to disappear.”

“Makes sense. C’mon, there’s an empty table over there.”

“I haven’t got a lunch yet.”

“You can have mine; I’m not hungry. My mom makes great manicotti.”

Homemade manicotti sounded good. I followed her to the table and wondered where the rest of the Bumblebees were.

Lacey seemed to read my mind. “The girls are working on a routine. I didn’t feel up to it.” She passed me a Hello Kitty lunch bag and I suppressed a smirk because I really wanted that manicotti. Stuffed in a thermos, the pasta was squashed but tasty. I polished it off and refused to be embarrassed that Lacey was watching me while I ate.

I leaned back with satisfaction. “Thanks. I can’t believe how hungry I was.”

“Doing magic makes you hungry, remember?”

I glanced around at the students who were now oblivious to my presence and shrugged. I was pretty sure I was hungry because I was still relying on fast food places for dinner and skipping most of the other meals. “It doesn’t feel like magic. I would have thought magic would feel more, I don’t know, sparkly or something.”

Lacey smiled. “You felt something when you fought the Cŵn Annwn, didn’t you?”

“I felt powerful.”

She stopped smiling. Something was different about her. In just one week, she was thinner, but it didn’t suit her after all. I noticed a black tattoo peeking out from under the cuff of her denim shirt.

“You got a tattoo? Isn’t that against the cheerleader code or something?”

Lacey tugged the cuff back over the swirly mark on her wrist. “I can cover it with makeup when I’m in uniform.”

I looked closer. Lacey’s hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail and her face was pale. Her eyes had dark shadows under them.

And to be honest, she smells a little.

“Did you get the fith-fath thing from Rowan?” I felt funny saying it; it rhymed with hee-haw. Miko had explained the rules of Gaelic and Welsh to me, but I just didn’t understand how something spelled
sidhe
could be pronounced
shee
, or how
sith
could be pronounced the exact same way.
Baobhan sith
became
baavan shee
,
Cailleach
was
kaliex
, and my favorite name— which was pronounced shevon—was actually Siobhan. It was maddening.

Lacey shrugged. “I don’t need it.”

“But Taliesin said you could be in danger.”

She shrugged again.

“What’s going on, Lacey?” I was pretty sure I knew the answer. Lacey McInnis would never accept not being the best at something. Maybe she’d started investigating magic on her own. Taliesin had let it slip there was a lot of information about it on the internet.

Lacey rested her forehead against a clenched fist. “Nothing,” she sighed.

Before I could press it, she sat up straight and stared at the door. I turned around and saw Cailleach walking towards us. Her white hair was straight the way only a flat iron can make it and she had a slim figure anyone would envy. I closed my eyes for a moment and could just barely sense the cold silver surrounding her.

The woman stopped at our table and crossed her arms. The sleeve of her blouse pushed away from her wrist and up her arm and I saw that black tattoos in curving and knotted designs covered every inch of her exposed skin. Ice crept down my spine.

Who needs the internet when you have the Crone slumming at your school?

“Miss McInnis, you were supposed to meet me in the library to discuss your independent study unit. I don’t appreciate being kept waiting.”

Lacey shuffled to her feet. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t. Follow me. There is still time in the lunch period to make some progress.” Without waiting for a response, Cailleach turned and walked away, high heels clicking on the linoleum floor.

Gathering the lunch bag and stuffing it in her purse, Lacey gave me a listless wave as she left. I wanted to say something to stop her, but then I remembered how much Mom had kept from me. What right did I have to keep Lacey away from something she clearly wanted to do?

Cailleach stood waiting for her at the cafeteria doors. Lacey paused and looked back with a strange expression on her face—almost as if she expected me to do something—and then they were both gone.

I stayed invisible for the rest of the day so I could think in peace. Lacey could see through glamour based magic, so she must have known the truth of what Cailleach was right away. Taliesin knew the Crone was teaching at the school, but Miko said he wasn’t concerned—even magical beings sometimes need jobs. I decided that Lacey had a right to make her own decisions and it was none of my business.

It haunted me later that maybe she wanted me to stop her.