Why I Let My Hair Grow Out (19 page)

I was in Long-ago to break these enchantments. Once I did that, I'd be outta here. Back to my own time, though exactly when and where I'd land I had no clue.

And if I didn't? If I couldn't figure out how to break the spells, or if I tried and failed, or if I just gave up and sat around playing with my hair and sulking?

Then I'd stay Morganne, happily ever after in the Magic Kingdom of Long-ago Land, decked out in a long Disney princess dress with a hunky warrior-dude boyfriend and no reliable form of contraceptives.

What I understood is that I had a choice. I could get the job done and go home, or I could relax. Go with the flow. Stay.

Stay? In Long-ago? And miss the junior prom? No thanks. The hair was fun, but so what. I could always let mine grow out.

I knew what I needed to do.

i needed to hire a band.

For the tangoing twosome to make it all the way to the altar (or the shrine or the sacred grotto or wherever it was the Druids performed their ceremonies), they would need more than me bum-bumming my way through “Hernando's Hideaway.” They would need ambience, the kind only live music can provide. Call it YBCSWB: Your Basic Castle Scene With Band.

But how would I find a band? It's not like I could just log onto MySpace and click on MP3s until I found one I liked.

Fergus was too busy carving our names in the sides of trees to be of practical assistance. Much as I hated to stroke his ego, I asked Cúchulainn for advice.

“Dude,” I said. “We need a band. Where can I find some musicians?”

Cúchulainn stopped polishing his armor long enough to heap some friendly scorn upon me. “Morganne, for a semidivinity, you are an inexplicably ignorant woman,” he said. “This is Ireland. Everyone is a musician.”

“Great,” I said. “Send some over to the king's hall. Rehearsal's at three. I'll be teaching them a show tune.”

 
by the time the second royal dancing lesson Was convened, King Conor and Queen-in-training Dana were holding hands even when they weren't practicing the tango.

“Hernando's Hideaway” sounded a little odd played on the harp and the drum and the wooden flute, but the beat was solid and the royal couple-to-be had the steps down. We added some simple turns and I felt the time was right to do my goddess-of-love thing and give King Conor and Dana a nudge.

“You two look great together,” I commented. “If you don't mind me asking, have you had a chance to talk any more about, you know—the relationship?”

They both got a bit bashful. King Conor started picking threads out of his royal robes.

“Guys!” I scolded. “A good relationship is all about communication.” This I knew from my mom's subscription to
O, The Oprah Magazine
. My mom is very big on Dr. Phil. “Talk!”

Now they both started laughing. “All is well, Morganne,” said King Conor. “The truth is—in a way—we have already wed.”

Whoa! Was this what life was like before the tabloids? A king could get married and nobody knew? I was shocked.

“Conor, that is so sweet!” said Dana, looking deeply into his eyes. “But you'd best tell her what happened.” She looked very pleased with herself. “It might affect the enchantment.”

The king cleared his throat. “After we were done with our dancing we took a walk in the moonlight, and, well, one thing led to another.”

“And?” I said, crossing my arms. I sounded exactly like my parents did when they were pumping me for information about where I'd been, what I'd done and who I'd done it with.

“Well, he's a great kisser,” explained Dana.

“And, well. One thing led to another,” repeated the king. The two of them giggled.

Well well well. Sounded like some royal tilling had occurred.

“Congratulations, you two!” I said, but I knew it wasn't enough.
Wed fire and gold to the king.
Tilling was all very well, but to break the enchantment they were going to have to take it to the next level. “I'm very happy for you. But don't you think we should celebrate a little? Make it, you know, official?”

“Not a feast!” moaned Conor. “If we have a wedding feast before this curse is lifted, I'll just end up eating myself silly.” He looked at Dana. “That wouldn't be very romantic.”

“But won't getting married break the spell?” asked Dana, sounding alarmed. “You promised me once we were married you'd change. No more uncontrollable eating and drinking, remember?”

“Um. Um. Um,” King Conor stammered.

“Because I
really
like to entertain!” she went on. “And I don't want to find out after it's too late that you cannot behave like a gentleman at a dinner party!”

“Um. Um.” He looked at me for help.

“The spell
will
be broken, I promise! But there's one more part of the enchantment I have to solve.” I looked over at the musicians and gave them the get-ready nod. “It's really easy: We just have to win a war without killing anyone.”
Not that I have any clue how to do that,
I thought, leading King Conor and Dana to our improvised dance floor. “I'm working on it. In the meantime, how about a celebration that's not all about food? A simple exchange of vows, perhaps?”

Dana took a deep breath and looked at King Conor. She really liked him; it was all over her face. “I could make us some lovely rings,” she suggested.

“And then—a dance?” King Conor smiled shyly at his already-bedded, soon-to-be-wedded bride-to-be. I cued the band with a nod.

“A dance!” She smiled and stretched out one arm, striking a very nice tango pose. “That would be perfect.”

eighteen

 
Let rivals come forth to do battle.
I didn't like the sound of that one bit. For one thing, it sounded serious, like if we didn't get it right people
would
get killed. That might be all in a day's slaying to Cúchulainn and Fergus, but still—it made me anxious. I didn't even like to smoosh bugs.

There was something else bothering me too: The keys to solving the first two enchantments had been provided by my other, actual, Morgan self. Only after my date with Colin (where we moved the earth without tilling, sigh!) did the merrow appear and lead me to Erin. And only after I found the lost gold earring of the fiery-tempered Carrie Pippin was I able to peek back into Long-ago and recognize the woman of “fire and gold” the king was meant to marry.

But now that a couple of days in Long-ago time had passed, it didn't feel like I was going back to my bike tour anytime soon. Would I ever? Had I disappeared altogether from my own century, or was Morgan-me living out a whole life in some other time-space continuum (thank you,
Star Trek
) that I didn't know about, while Morganne-me was spending her summer vacation in King Conorville giving dance class and lamely attempting to undo enchantments?

If so, I hoped the other me was having fun. If I never made it back, I hoped she would have a nice summer and find a nice boyfriend next year, nicer than Raph for sure, and maybe get back into playing field hockey, and get her driver's license and go to the prom whether she had a date or not, and spend more time with Sarah and the rest of her old friends before graduation and get into a decent college and pick some sort of interesting career and have a pleasant life.

As for Morganne, the semidivinity—I might have to figure this one out without any help from Morgan, the cranky suburban teen. The irony did not escape me.

Let rivals come forth to do battle.
Clearly all hell was about to break loose. But until it did, we would dance the tango at a royal wedding.

 
i Was expecting the druid priest to be like gandalf from the
Lord of the Rings
movies, but she was actually a priest
ess
, and a young one at that. She was tall and fair and sporty looking and babbled her incantations in a strange, guttural Druid dialect. She reminded me of Heidi, in fact. Poor Heidi. If I ever saw her again I would offer to take a nice picture of her.

The ceremony was short and sweet, with the high point being the exchange of the rings. Dana had made a matching pair of her own design—each one a beautiful gold band that ended in a pair of hands holding a single heart between them.

Afterward, while all the loyal subjects of King Conor's realm (who'd been warned to eat beforehand, since no food would be served) were gamely imitating the royal couple and inventing their own strange and wonderful versions of the tango, Fergus and I went over to compliment Dana on her jewelry design.

The newlyweds held out their hands so we could see the rings up close. The two-hands-clasped pattern looked strangely familiar to me.

“I think it would be nicer with a crown on top,” teased King Conor.

“No, no, a crown is too much. It's vulgar!” Dana said. For a minute I was afraid we were about to witness their first official marital spat. But then Dana took his hand.

“But of course, my husband, if you want one, I can always add a crown.”

That's when I started to cry.

“Beautiful, isn't it?” Fergus was misty-eyed too.

“Yes, but it's just—” I knew he couldn't really understand, but I'd just figured it out and my heart was so full I had to share the moment with someone. “There was this episode of
Buffy
, when she and Angel are about to say good-bye, and he gives her a ring exactly like that, because it's an old Irish tradition, and now, look—it's all starting right here, and here we are, how cool is that?”

“Buffy?” said Fergus. “Who's Buffy?”

 
“grab your Weapons! the Castle is under attack!”

Typical. Even at the king's wedding, Cúchulainn found a way to be the center of attention. Galloping into the middle of the dance on Samhain's back, hollering and waving his sword-thingy around and working all his hero special effects like it was sweeps week. Right when Fergus and I were in the middle of a nice tango dip too.

“NO WEAPONS!” I yelled. “Cúchulainn, put that tornado away right now! There is to be
no fighting.
” God, I sounded like my mom.

“But an invading army is at the castle gates! They want to steal our cattle and our women! They are
pissing me off
!” roared Cúchulainn. Poor Sam was dropping big fragrant horse turds on the dance floor, out of excitement, I guess.

There would be no rest for the weary enchantment-breaking semigoddess, obviously. “ ‘The war must be won without killing,' remember?” I said, swatting away the sparks that were flying off Cúchulainn's forehead and threatening to set my dress on fire. “Do you want to get rid of these enchantments or not?”

He pouted, and his tornado downgraded itself to a couple of smoke rings. “Fine. I won't slaughter them all single- handedly and mount their bloody severed heads on the parapets, though naturally I
could
.” He sounded miffed and petulantly turned to his king. “No killing! Feh. What would you like me to do
instead
?”

King Conor looked at his new queen, and then back to Cúchulainn. “We should invite them in, I suppose,” the king said, patting Dana's hand. “I hope they've already eaten. Who is their commander?”

Even Cúchulainn looked a bit worried. “Queen Maeve,” he said.

Porn-star Maeve? Complete with her own army? How hot is
that
?

 
Who is more fierce and fine than Queen maeve?

Nobody. This woman was buffer, cooler and I do mean
endowed
with more action-hero sex appeal than all three of Charlie's Angels put together. She galloped up to the castle on a chestnut stallion like she was roaring into town on a Harley-Davidson.

“Who do I kill first?” she bellowed, as her horse reared up and threw a few taunting punches with its hooves. “And where do you keep the
real
men?” Wisely, King Conor had sent his more unflappable advisers to greet her; otherwise the fight would have been on before the warrior-queen dismounted.

After some heated negotiations, Maeve agreed to postpone the lopping-off-limbs action and “parley.” As far as I could tell, both sides took this to mean that they would sit down and chat for a while before taking it outside to hack each other to bits.

I knew a thing or two about randy Queen Maeve and what rocked her world, thanks to Colin's lunchtime mythology lesson (thirty guys a day or Super-Tilling with the Mythic Stud Fergus, in case you've forgotten). But what I didn't know was whether
my
Fergus was
her
Fergus, and if he was, whether their uh, relationship, had already happened or was in the future. Easy enough to find out, though.

“That Maeve, she's really something, isn't she?” Through the ramparts of the castle Fergus and I watched her leap off her horse and hand the reins to one of her warriors.

“Who?” he murmured. He was standing close behind me, dreamily inhaling the scent of my hair.

“Queen Maeve,” I said. Now she was squatting in the dirt to pee. Nice of her to take care of that before going indoors. “Have you two ever met?”