Green (7 page)

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"That's assuming you pass your trial, o' course," Kate piped in. "But the way you take after your gran, there's little chance o' anything else."

"About this trial," I said, snagging another doughnut from a passing waiter. "What exactly is it for?"

"What do you mean, girl?" Bronwyn asked. "It's how you become keeper."

"Yes, but what does a keeper do?"

"She keeps, o' course! She keeps for the clan."

Her answers weren't remotely helpful, but I'd suddenly thought of a more important question. "Bronwyn, if I pass the test, will I be allowed to go home? Balthazar said Gigi came and went as she pleased."

"Aye, and she did, once she was keeper. You'll--"

Bagpipes launched into a crazed fanfare. Bronwyn stiffened with excitement. "Hush!" she whispered. "It's time!"

Across the table from me, Sosanna stood on her stool to address the gathering. "Over the centuries," the chief intoned, "leplings have assisted their leprechaun brethren with many tasks: securing the deeds to our real estate, communications over the water, driving. But for the past three hundred years, ever since Donal Green devised his security spells, having a lepling keeper has been absolutely necessary. May Lilybet Green serve us well and faithfully, keeping the count, transferring what's needed, protecting and increasing the hoard o' Green for the rest o' her natural life."

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The rest of my natural life?
I didn't like the sound of that. And then things got worse.

The chief raised both hands above her head, palms out toward the crowd. "Let the first test begin!"

"What!" I cried into a deafening roar of approval. "The
first
test?"

Nobody heard me.

I looked over at a grinning Balthazar. "You said there was
one
test!"

"Cheers, Lil!" he yelled back, applauding as if he couldn't understand me over the noise. "You'll do grand!"

Everyone was clapping away as if I ought to be delighted. I shot wounded looks at Bronwyn and Lexie, feeling totally betrayed. I didn't want to take their stupid first test. I didn't want to take
any
test.

I just wanted to go home.

No one cared what I wanted, though. The leprechauns marched me off the platform and back through the town, me protesting the entire way that I was tired, that it was dark, that my stomach ached, all to no avail. Skirting the keeper's cottage, we entered the wide field behind it, only a few torches lighting our way to the rocky hill on its other side. A dark slit appeared between boulders. We were headed into another cave.

"Not a chance!" I said, digging in with Gigi's flats. "There's no way I'm going in there!"

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"But you have to, Lil," Lexie said. "That's the test."

"Crawling through a dirty cave?" I was about to tell her I'd already been there, done that, when I noticed the odd expression in Lexie's eyes. She was looking up at me as if ... as if she looked
up
to me. As if I were one of the cool kids. "What kind of stupid test is that?" I stalled.

"The standard first test," Bronwyn replied. "Nothing to trouble the mind o' any true granddaughter o' Maureen's. Now, Lil, in you go."

Lexie was still gazing at me in that hero-worshipping way. One of my shoes inched toward the entrance as if it had a mind of its own. The next thing I knew, I'd stepped inside a completely dark cave.

"You guys!" I complained, turning back toward the entrance. "Bring in some of those torches!"

In almost the same instant, a grinding, crashing thud jolted the earth as something huge fell across the cave entrance, blocking out all but a chink of dark gray sky.

"Help! Cave-in!" I cried, throwing myself up against the darkness. My hands clawed cold, damp stone.

"It's not a cave-in, Lil," Balthazar chirped cheerfully from the other side. "Bit o' a heavy door, that's all."

They had sealed me in on purpose? I wanted to scream with rage, but I was too petrified. Instead, I huddled against the stone, unable to believe how stupid I was.

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Balthazar clucked reassuringly through the tiny airhole. "Now then, Lil, nothing to worry about."

And then a second, smaller stone plugged the opening completely.

I sank to my haunches. The darkness was so intense it seemed to have a life of its own. I imagined it breathing against my skin--until I realized something else could be in the cave with me, something that actually breathed.

What if I'm dragon food?
In a meadow crawling with leprechauns, anything seemed possible. Squelching a whimper, I pressed my back against the cold stone and strained to hear any sound: a rustle, a slither, the smacking of lips.

Nothing reached my ears but my own strangled breathing. Even the crowd outside had gone completely silent. Eventually, I realized they'd left.

They probably don't want to hear my screams as the flesh is torn off my bones
.

Frightened tears slipped down my cheeks, gradually drying into clammy tracks. Nothing crawled out of the darkness. If I wasn't a midnight snack, why was I there? Was I just supposed to stay put all night, freezing my butt off in the dark? Or was something more expected of me?

Wiping my nose on Gigi's sleeve, I stroked the key around my neck. It felt warm beneath my fingers, full of comforting memories. I ran my fingertips up and down it,

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thinking of Gigi and happier times. The gold grew even warmer. Then slowly, very dimly, the key began to glow.

I blinked a couple of times, not believing my eyes. But the light got even stronger, cranking up until it blazed. I stared at the key in amazement, and then I realized something else: the rock walls of my prison were visible at last.

The space I was trapped in was no bigger than a classroom. I breathed a sigh of relief as my key light reached its far corners; I might be by myself, but at least I was alone.

I ventured farther into the cave, holding the key like a flashlight. The cave's back wall was a sheer stone face ten feet tall. I shuffled toward it, drawn in a way I couldn't explain. My eyes scanned each rocky bump and divot, and that was when I saw it: carved into the wall, right at eye level, was a perfect keyhole.

And there I stood, holding a magical key.

Not stopping to think, I slipped Gigi's key into the rock. It slid in as if greased, disappearing up to its hilt.

The stone wall shimmered, then vanished in a puff of dust. I gasped as a much larger cave was revealed behind it, one loaded to its stalactites with glowing leprechaun gold.

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Chapter 6

All the blood in my body rushed straight to my head...Gold sparkled and glittered and gleamed until my brain nearly shorted out. For a moment, I just stood there, staring. Then I found my legs again and ran in among the treasure.

There were piles and piles of coins mounded higher than my head--disks like dimes with holes drilled through them, solid rounds the size of coasters, and quarter-sized coins stamped with clovers and crowns. Gold bars the size of erasers, of sticks of butter, of bricks, were stacked in pyramids ten feet high, right up to the ceiling. There were other

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golden objects too: plump gold eggs, heavy-linked chains, goblets, plates, a human baby shoe. And filling every space between were truckloads of gold nuggets, from lumps smaller than raisins to hunks the size of my fist.

The gold sucked me into its center as if it had its own gravity. Its strange flickering glow filled the cave with light. I waded ankle-deep through nuggets, my hands reaching out first to stroke, then to grab. Snatching handfuls of coins, I tossed them up into the air and watched them rain back down.

"Whoo-hoo!" I shouted, skipping from pile to pile, kicking nuggets about. My shout echoed off the spiky roof and bounced back into untold tons of hoarded leprechaun gold. I finally understood what I was supposed to be keeping.

I was in charge of all this gold!

Darting from side to side, I touched everything within reach and tried to guess what it was all worth.
Millions, for sure
, I thought.
Probably billions!

I had never much cared about money before, but I suddenly understood why people spent their whole lives chipping through solid rock or standing in freezing streams swirling gravel around a pan. I knew in the deepest part of myself why people fought and died for gold, and even why they killed.

I had gold lust, and I had it bad.

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I ran deeper and deeper into the cave. The gold stretched on like a sweet dream. At last the cave's real back wall came into view, and in a cozy open pocket between its smooth stone and the last mounds of gold were a cot, a chair, a stack of empty burlap sacks with green lashing cords, and an antique desk. A lamp burned on the desk beside an open leather-bound book. I moved closer, intrigued.

Cramped rows of green handwriting formed columns stretching halfway down the book's open page. The enormous ledger was jam-packed with strange names, numbers, and dates. With a start, I recognized the tiny writing: Gigi's. Her final three lines read:

Feegan Green +500 dymers 6 August 48

Evan Green +4 gold eggs 13 August 48

Nonny Green-9 deloreans 24 August 48

I flipped backward through the pages. The book's paper was thin as a Bible's, but somehow the writing inked on both sides didn't bleed through. The last number in Gigi's entries ticked gradually backward from forty-eight to one. Instinctively, I understood that the center column kept track of the gold entering and leaving the cave, but I just didn't get those dates. They obviously couldn't stand for 2001 to 2048, and 1901 to 1948 didn't make sense either.

Finally, on a page by itself, I found this:

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Here begins the Accounting of Maureen Green

in the first year of her service as

Keeper of the Clan of Green.

The first line of the next page read:

Balthazar Green-500 deloreans 4 April 1

The dates came clear all at once. My grandmother's birthday was March 31. She must have become keeper four days later. That last number didn't stand for a calendar year at all; it marked her years of service.

Flipping back past Gigi's first page, I encountered a new set of entries with dates running up through sixty-three.

Gigi's predecessor!
I realized, flipping madly.
Sixty-three years as keeper! Wait, was this Gigi's grandmother?
The name at the start of those entries was Violet Green. A new thought stopped my breath:
Violet must have been, like, my great-great-something!

Another set of entries appeared before Violet's, and another before that, keeper after keeper stretching back hundreds of years.
Somehow I'm related to all these people
, I thought, awed. I flopped the remaining pages over to see who had started the book. A letter written in the same green ink waited for me between the book's first page and its cover.

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Dear Lily,

I'd so looked forward to being here with you, sharing the Meadows together as you prepare for your keeper trial. But life doesn't always go as we hope, and you're holding this letter instead of my hand, so something must have carried me off before your thirteenth birthday.

Whatever has happened, please don't be sad. I lived a charmed life, and you were one of the best things in it. Another thing I loved was spending time here, being keeper for my clan. My fondest wish was to pass this honor on to you--and here you are, preparing to take my place. I couldn't be more proud.

Congratulations on passing your first test! Finding this letter means you've opened the inner keep. You must strive to pass the remaining two tests and become our next keeper. As keeper, you'll receive a share of leprechaun luck and a fine salary for life. More importantly, you belong here, Lily. This is your extended family and a place where you'll always be loved.

I don't know what your other two tests

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will be. I wouldn't be allowed to tell you how to pass them if I did. Just remember this: You're a Green, Lily. You're Green through and through. The answers are inside you, and you'll find them when you need them most.

I wish I had something truly wise to close with. Instead, I'll have to settle for a few grandmotherly pointers:

Always remember how much I love you. I believe that you and I will meet again. Until then, hold your head up and never doubt for one moment how truly special you are.

With you always,

Gigi

I put down Gigi's letter with, shaking hands. Curling up on the keeper's cot, I inhaled the hint of her perfume that still clung to its blanket. Gigi had wanted me right where I was. She had wanted me to pass my tests and take her place as keeper. It had been important to her, and that