My Fair Godmother (22 page)

Once we’d arrived at the inn, the priest rang the church bell to let the villagers know there was important news. Several of the men made a bonfire in the middle 283/431

of the street. Then everyone crowded around for warmth while Tristan told them of my rescue and his daring triumph over the monster. In the story, Tristan said I’d gone to the forest searching for him because I thought he went to fight the cyclops. I had been worried when he hadn’t returned and feared he might be lying wounded somewhere. Which I suppose sounded better than saying I went because I was foolish.

He left the shampoo out of it altogether, much to my disappointment, but did say he had temporarily blinded the cyclops with his magic lantern. Then he flipped on the flashlight and shined a beam of light into the crowd.

They shielded their eyes and gasped, and were just as fascinated by the magic lantern— wanting to see and touch it—as they were by the cyclops’s head. Which they also wanted to see and touch. Even the little kids had to come up and poke the thing in its face like it was some sort of elaborate Halloween mask.

I couldn’t look at it without getting the dry heaves.

After everyone was done gaping at the head, the innkeeper took it, put it in a burlap sack, and locked it in his wine cellar for safekeeping. Then Tristan and a bunch of the menfolk went to the inn and the innkeeper brought out all sorts of food in celebration. Tristan paid for it, which I thought was backward, but everyone kept clapping him on the back and calling him the king’s new 284/431

son-in-law, so I guess they figured he could afford it.

Even Sir William, who’d been downright put out during the bonfire, became more cheerful when the food was passed around.

It looked like the feasting could go on for quite a while. I didn’t have much of a stomach for food—nearly being killed and then spending the evening with a de-capitated cyclops head will do that to you. Besides, I didn’t fit in here with these people. Not like Tristan did.

I went up to my room.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, and I didn’t even want to try. I pulled the blankets around myself and sat on the bed, leaning against the wall. I’d left the door open so I could listen to the sounds from downstairs. I wanted to hear people chatting and laughing. Happy noises. It kept at bay the dark images of the day that kept darting through my mind. The goat lunging at me.

The robbers’ leering faces. The cyclops as he rushed toward me, and the feel of his claws holding me tight as he dragged me through the forest. My ribs still hurt.

“Savannah?” I saw a silhouette in the doorway and recognized Tristan.

“Yeah?”

“Why are you sitting in the dark?”

“Because I’m too twenty-first century and if I can’t flip on a switch then it’s too much trouble to light a room.” 285/431

He hesitated, one arm on the door frame. “I want to talk to you about tomorrow.”

I figured he didn’t want to do that in the dark so I got up and walked toward the door, but he disappeared and came back with a torch that had been in the hallway. We met just inside my door. He put the torch into a hanger, then leaned against the wall looking at me. “In the morning I’m going to the castle to take the proof of the cyclops’s death to King Roderick. Did you want to come with me?”

“No.”

He nodded as though expecting as much. “That’s fine, but you have to stay here. In this room.” His blue eyes turned intense as he emphasized the point. “I don’t want to come back and find you’re off trying to help me slay the dragon, okay? I know they’re fun magical creatures in all those fantasy novels back home, but here they’re more like huge flying crocodiles. That have bad tempers.

And shoot flames out of their mouths. And eat people.

In fact, they don’t like to eat raw meat so they cook their food inside their mouths, often while listening to it scream. Do you understand what I’m telling you?” I turned away from him. “I understand perfectly. You think I’m incompetent.”

“That’s not what I said.”

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But it was too late; the stress of the day finally cres-cendoed in my mind. I was trying so hard to do things right and nothing had gone the way I’d planned. Even coming here felt like a mistake. Tristan didn’t want my help. The tears didn’t have time to well up in my eyes.

They just came, spilling out onto my cheeks.

He walked toward me, a sigh on his lips. “Don’t cry.” I wiped the tears off my cheeks but they were just replaced by others. Then I started sobbing.

“Savannah.” He said my name softly, partially with exasperation, but with something else too. Forgiveness maybe. He put his arms around me and I lay my head against his chest. The scratchy wool of his tunic pressed roughly against my cheek. I didn’t care that it felt like sandpaper or smelled of the bonfire smoke. I wound my arms around his waist.

The tears kept coming but breathing was easier.

“It’s okay,” he said, and then said it over and over while stroking my hair. “You’re not incompetent. Hey, you’re the one who brought the Shampoo Bottle of Death with you.” His fingers lingered over a lock of my hair and he brought it up to his face. “Not only will it disable monsters but it makes your hair smell good too.” I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t.

“Look, I’m sorry I yelled at you before,” he said, and he let out another sigh. “It’s just . . . you belong back in 287/431

high school. Back with the cheerleaders, and the track team, and the mall. Safe things. Things that don’t eat girls. You don’t realize how dangerous all of this is. It’s some sort of game to you.”

“No, it’s not.”

He ran his fingers across the back of my hair. “Why did you come back to the Middle Ages to help me?” I lifted my head up to look at him. “I had to. It was the right thing to do.”

His expression was unreadable, serious. He nodded slightly but I had no idea whether my explanation satisfied him.

“I didn’t mean to send you here,” I said. “I was just upset about the whole Hunter thing and not thinking clearly.”

“I know,” he said.

“And okay, a lot of times I don’t think clearly, but I’m trying.”

“I know,” he said again. His hand moved from my hair down my back. Which, by the way, suddenly made it hard to think clearly.

My voice came out just above a whisper. “I’m really not looking for a prince.”

“Good.”

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He was so near, and it was so comforting to have his arms around me. I didn’t want him to move away from me. “What does Princess Margaret’s hair smell like?”

“Cough medicine.”

It bothered me that he actually knew the answer to that question. “Is that where you were all day? With her?”

He looked up at the ceiling as though trying to make an accounting of his time, but he didn’t let go of me. “I was talking to members of the king’s guards who’ve dealt with the dragon before, practicing archery with the other knights, and yes, part of the time I was trying to pump Princess Margaret for information on the Black Knight.”

That shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. “Did she tell you anything useful?”

“Not really. She’s upset about something. I didn’t catch the whole conversation between her and Lady Theodora, but apparently whoever it was who stood her up yesterday still hasn’t come by to beg her forgiveness.”

“The Black Knight?”

He shrugged. “Who knows?” His hand was back on my hair, twisting strands of it between his fingers. Quite distracting.

I said, “Your future fiancée wouldn’t let me out of her room.”

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He showed no alarm at this news. “She thought you were sick. You told her yourself that you were.”

“I don’t trust her and I don’t think you should either, even if she is demure . . . and has a nice dowry.”

“You don’t need to be jealous.” He tightened his arms, pressing me closer to him. “Some girls don’t need to bribe guys into liking them.”

He bent down to kiss me, and I tilted my face up to meet his lips. I wanted more than anything to kiss him, to feel like he cared about me that way. It felt like triumph, like acceptance. Then with a thud to my heart, I remembered what a kiss would do and pushed him away.

He stared at me, surprised, and I could only stare back at him, wide-eyed and breathless. I still had more than five days left until the switching enchantment wore off and I’d just come close to forgetting everything and making myself a permanent resident of the Middle Ages.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that . . .” Did I tell him or not? I hadn’t wanted to tempt him with the knowledge of how easy it would be for him to get rid of his enchantment, but he wouldn’t take advantage of me, would he? I could trust him. He’d risked his life to save me from the cyclops . . . Of course he’d needed to kill the cyclops anyway . . .

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I’d waited too long. Tristan supplied his own ending.

“You’re still getting over Hunter?” I hated lying to him, but it was the safest way. I nodded. “I need a little more time before I can get involved with anyone.” Five days to be precise.

I heard someone walking down the hallway and waited for them to pass before I finished talking to Tristan. But they didn’t. They walked right to our door. I heard the innkeeper say, “This here be your sister’s room.”

And then Jane and Hunter walked in.

From the Honorable Sagewick Goldengill
To Madame Bellwings, Fairy Advancement
Dear Madame Bellwings,

Due to the limitations of the Memoir Elves,
there appears to be an essential gap in this narrative. Will you contact Leprechaun Relations
and ask them for details regarding the transportation of Jane Delano and Hunter Delmont
back in time to the land of Pampovilla?

Yours,

Professor Sagewick Goldengill
From Clover T. Bloomsbottle
To Professor Sagewick Goldengill
Dear Professor,

Some blokes up at the Roadside Tavern said
you wanted to know my part in how those two
mortals ended up in the Middle Ages. Well, after
a series of unfortunate circumstances, I found
myself in the land of the Yanks. I made a pact
with a mortal girl and she said she’d mail me
back to Ireland. Aye—but never trust a mortal—it was just a trick. She trapped me in the box
so her sister could find me and demand me gold.

So there I was, trusting as you like, when I
heard the tape ripping off the box. Then, sure
enough, there were two gigantic heads peering
down at me.

“What is that?” the lass asked.

And the lad said, “I think it’s alive.”
I at once told them what’s what. “You can’t
have me gold, so don’t even ask.”
Well, the two of them took to staring at me
some more and the lad said, “I think it’s supposed to be a leprechaun.”

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The lass blinked at me. “A leprechaun? Magic
is real?”

Ah, the arrogance of mortals! “Of course magic is real,” I told her. “You think just because
you don’t see something that it isn’t real? When
was the last time any of you saw gravity or electricity? You don’t appreciate magic when you
see it, and that’s why you mortals see so little of
it.”

The lad looked down in the box as though he
hadn’t heard a single word and said, “Why is Savannah mailing a leprechaun to Ireland?”
So I told them, “I promised I’d help send Savannah to the Middle Ages if she’d send me to
Ireland. I did my part of the bargain. She’s
there, isn’t she?”

Well, you’ve never seen such hysterics. The
lass started gasping and clenching the side of
the box so hard I thought she’d tip me gold right
over. “Savannah can’t go running around the
Middle Ages! She’ll catch the plague or
something. What is she doing there?”
To tell you the truth, I couldn’t remember myself. What are the affairs of mortals to the likes
of us? Just one mess after another. So I
scratched my beard and said, “It had something
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to do with a prince. She wanted to go to some
fancy dress-wearing thing you mortals all do
when you’re in love.”

The sister started a-gasping again. “A wedding? She wants to marry a prince?”
But I can’t be expected to keep track of foolish
young girls’ wishes. I said, “I expect she’ll be
there for no more than a few months. Unless she
gets stuck there altogether or killed. Sometimes
that happens to the more foolish mortals.”
The lass let out a shriek, and repeated, “She’s
doomed! I’m never going to see Savannah
again!”

I hated to see the poor thing so distressed and
technically I owed them a favor, as they opened
the box that I’d been shut in. So I told them I’d
use me magic mirror to check in on Savannah
and tell them how she fared. Right generous of
me, and I don’t mind saying so.

A few minutes later I set their fears to rest.

“Your worries have been for nothing,” I told
them. “Helped kill a cyclops, she did. True, it almost ate her, but she made good bait. The cyclops was so distracted with her that the other
fellow was able to kill it. And all’s well that ends
well.”

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The lass proved to be of a weak constitution,
for she nearly swooned—had to sit down, right
there on the floor.

The lad said, “How do we get Savannah back?”

“Get her back?” I asked. “Why would you want
to do such a thing when she went to all that
trouble to get there?”

The lad got angry then. Pointed a finger at me
and said, “If you won’t help her, we’re not taking
you anywhere. You can just wait here for her to
come back. If she ever does.”
Well, I had to do something then, even if leprechauns have no power to send people to other
places. I told them, “If you relinquish any claim
on me gold—not that I’d give it to you anyway, so
don’t even ask—I might be able to call in a favor.