“I reckon we can manage that,” Dale said. “I make the strongest there is.”
David sighed helplessly. It was happening again: He was off on another venture into the unknown, when all he wanted was to live a normal life—more normal now that he had his lady.
As if she read his mind, Liz’s hand tightened around his own and she led him to the porch.
“David, I really do have to go,” she said, glancing at her watch. “It’s past midnight, and I have to get away early in the morning. But be careful—and remember one thing.”
“And what’s that?”
“That I love you.”
“I love you too,” David whispered, as they embraced and he buried his face in her hair. Her lips, when he found them, tasted of tears, and so, he knew, did his own.
Chapter XIII: Confessions
(Sullivan Cove, Georgia
—Sunday, August 18—morning)
“Pa,” David said early the next morning, “I need to talk to you.”
Big Billy regarded him curiously from around the side of Madam Bovary, the brown and white Guernsey cow. The splat of milk squirting into the galvanized bucket beneath her ceased abruptly. It was not quite dawn. Back in the house Uncle Dick and clan were still mercifully asleep, thralls to a night of revelry.
“I really
do
,” David insisted, shifting his weight impatiently and trying not to think either about how sleepy he was or how hungry.
“Must be important,” Big Billy observed, “to get you out here this early on Sunday mornin’.” Sunday was not David’s day to milk, and Calvin hadn’t ventured down off the mountain yet. David wondered what was keeping him.
“Uh, yeah, actually it is. But look, could you come outside for a minute? There’s something you need to see.”
“Can’t it wait? I gotta finish—”
David shook his head. “No…not really. This is as important as anything I’ve ever asked you. And it has to be now.”
Big Billy nodded sullenly and stood. He slapped Madam Bovary on one bony hip and promised to return. “What is it, then?” he grumbled, when David had led him into the barnyard.
“I can’t show you here. We need to go where we can see Bloody Bald.”
“I’ve seen that blamed mountain plenty of times, boy. What’s so special ’bout it now?”
“You’ll find out,” David replied, and ushered his father across the driveway and onto their upper pasture. A minute later they stood at the crest of a small hill, gazing west. Langford Lake was hidden in the same morning fog that shrouded most of the mountains. But they could see the pinnacle of Bloody Bald clearly from there, and that was all that mattered.
“Pa,” David began hesitantly, “I…I know that you know there’s been a lot of strange stuff going on around here lately—the last year especially.”
Big Billy nodded uncertainly. “Well,
that’s
a fact!”
“Okay, then,” David went on. “Well…there’s a reason for that, and that reason has to do mostly with me and something that happened to me one night.”
Big Billy folded his arms and regarded his son imperiously. “Go on.”
“Right. Well, do you remember last summer when I was so jumpy at breakfast and all? The day you found out I had that ring?”
“Yep, sure do.”
David took a deep breath. “Well, what you
don’t
know, what I never told you, is where I really got it. And the fact is that I got it from the Irish Faeries.”
There, he had said it, and right up to the moment he had not been certain he would be able. But Lugh had been as good as his word: the Ban had been lifted, as least as far as his father was concerned.
Big Billy’s face turned red as the eastern clouds. “Shit,” he spat. “You brought me out here to tell me that! I ought to wear you out!”
“No!” David cried quickly. “Let me finish! There’s a way I can prove it. It’s gonna be strange, but you gotta trust me. Just do what I ask and…and I promise I’ll never ask you another favor as long as I live. I’ll do my chores and work in the sorghum and be the good little boy you want…just humor me this once.”
Big Billy frowned but nodded. “What you want me to do?”
David glanced at his watch, then at the brightening sky. “It’s gonna be sunrise in a minute or two. But right before that happens I want you to stand on my feet and look over my shoulder at Bloody Bald. Yeah, I know it sounds strange, but it’s…well, it’s magic, that’s all. Just trust me this once, okay?”
Big Billy did not reply, but eased his Sears work boots awkwardly onto his far smaller son’s Reeboks—not his full weight, David noticed, which was just as well.
Another glance at the watch. Twenty seconds, fifteen, ten, eight…
“Are you lookin’ at the mountain, Pa?”
He could feel Big Billy nod clumsily.
Three, two, one…
As quickly as he could, David slapped his right hand atop his father’s head and whispered very softly, “Everything between my hands and my feet is within my power, now see, Pa; oh, please
see
!”
The top edge of the sun cleared the horizon.
David did not move, for his father’s breathing had gone very still. He was trembling slightly.
“Pa?” he cried. “Pa, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Big Billy gasped at last. “I don’t have to see no more. I believe you.”
“That’s good,” David sobbed in relief as he released his hold. “’Cause that’s just the start of what I’ve gotta tell you. I—”
“
I’ve
got to finish the milkin’,” Big Billy interrupted. “But I sure could use some company, ’specially if there’s things that need explainin’.”
David risked one final glance back toward the mountain—and saw the peak taller than it should be, saw a glitter of towers and pinnacles flash briefly from the summit—and heard twelve long notes of trumpet, one sounding from each tower to greet the sun.
“‘The splendor falls on castle walls,’” he began.
“What’s that?” Big Billy asked.
“Just a poem, Pa. Tennyson.”
Big Billy’s only answer was to lay an arm across his son’s shoulders and draw him close for the first time in almost a year.
*
Because Lugh’s proposal was not a matter he could discuss over the phone, David had to wait until church let out to get hold of Alec, and the waiting nearly drove him batty. What was he going to tell the guy, anyway? That the Sidhe wanted them to bop off on yet another quest into some other World? Did he have the right to ask such a thing, knowing that Alec had been grounded, never mind how he felt about Faery?
But did he dare
not
ask him? The Sidhe themselves had suggested he take other companions; that implied they felt very strongly that Alec
should
be a member of the expedition. And then David remembered something the fortuneteller had told him at last year’s fair:
Three are mightier than one, but one is mightiest of the three.
Alec had been one, of the three then. Was he still?
David wondered. He’d been neglecting his buddy: paying a lot more attention to Liz, to Calvin, maybe even to the Sidhe. So to fail to ask him now would not only risk pissing Lugh and company, it would quite possibly further alienate his best friend. Besides, an adventure might be all well and good, but David was going off with a couple of guys he didn’t really know, and while he liked both Fionchadd and Calvin, he was
comfortable
with Alec, and it might be real good to have somebody comfortable along.
So he sat in MacTyrie Methodist’s newly paved parking lot, and waited, and every now and then glanced up at the four white Ionic columns, the red brick walls, and the tall metal steeple, and let the homey image soothe him. He hadn’t planned this exactly, so the waiting gave him time to lay out his arguments, except he never could quite figure out where to get started. Eventually he turned on the radio. Atlanta’s 96 Rock was playing Tom Petty’s “Woman in Love,” which was followed by Creedence’s “Travelin’ Band” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Hypnotized.” David found himself drowsing, but then the song ended and another began—right as the church door swung wide and a surge of people poured out. He strained his eyes in quest of his friend and found him, just as the Doors’ ominous “Riders on the Storm” commenced. He flicked it off. Taking a deep breath, he climbed out of the Mustang, sprinted across the lot, and started across the grassy lawn. “Alec,” he called. “Hey, guy, get over here!”
Alec pulled away from his mother’s arm. David waved at tall, gray-haired Mrs. McLean and quickened his step. Alec was closer now; David could see his face brightening in the clear morning light. In his tan linen suit he looked very dapper—certainly more so than David, whose sole concessions to Sunday were white jeans instead of blue ones and a nondescript green dress shirt.
“So, oh Mad One, what brings you here?” Alec chuckled when they got within easy speaking range. “Surely they got that old time religion up on Sullivan Cove?”
“
Real
old time, as a matter of fact. But seriously, I’ve got to talk to you about…”
“If you’re here, it must be about
that
stuff? Oh, jeeze, Davy; I don’t know if I want to.”
“Don’t let me down before I’ve even started.”
Alec’s gaze shifted to the ground as they continued to walk toward the Mustang. “But it always gets me in trouble.”
“Yeah, well, I’m afraid it will this time, too; but I have to tell you. Besides, you’ve got a right to know.”
They reached the car and climbed inside. “Wanta come to lunch?” Alec asked suddenly, turning hopeful eyes toward his friend.
David thought about the fast he had begun that morning and heard his stomach growl as if on cue. He shook his head sadly. “Can’t.”
“Oh, come on, it’s lasagne!”
“I
can’t
,
Alec. That’s part of the problem.”
Alec scooted around to face him. “Maybe you’d better spill it, then.”
David did.
“Whew,” Alec said when he had finished. “That’s a hell of a mess. And
naturally
the Sidhe need you to straighten it out.”
“Well, not me specifically.”
Suddenly Alec was giggling uncontrollably.
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh, just that they’re so bloody great, the immortal Sidhe. But give them one little problem, and what do they do? Come running to us—and not even to grown-ups, to kids! A bunch of stupid-ass kids!”
“I’m not a child, kiddo.”
Alec raised a challenging eyebrow. “You’re a man, then?”
David paused thoughtfully. So much had happened in the last twelve hours that one of the major events in his life had almost got lost in the shuffle. “In…one way at least,” he said at last.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
David flushed deep scarlet. “What do you
think
?”
Alec stared at him incredulously.
“You?
And…Liz? You mean you finally did it?”
David nodded sheepishly, certain his ears would self-combust from embarrassment. “I…well, I mean it’s personal, and all. But…well, I guess I’d feel worse if I didn’t tell you. Besides, I remember what you told me once, that you’d know anyway ’cause she’d be grinnin’ like a ’possum.”
“I haven’t seen her today,” Alec noted dryly. “I’ll have to be on the lookout for the mask of the great marsupial.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
Alec paused ever so briefly, but David caught it and frowned. “Uh, look, bro; I’ll be glad to fill you in sometime, but what I
really
need to talk about’s if you’ll go to Galunlati with me. It’s a week till school starts, and this shouldn’t take that long—not long at all maybe, depending on how time runs in that other place. But I’d like to have you along.”
Alec bit his lip in perplexity. “I don’t know. I mean I’m grounded and all. It’d be hard to explain to my folks, especially about the fasting.”
“What’d you
do,
anyway? I mean it’s not like you to give them a lot of trouble or anything.”
Alec’s eyes went slightly out of focus, and he blinked several times in succession.
“You okay?”
“Huh? Oh yeah, sure. It’s just that I had a flash of headache right then. Jeeze, I forgot what I was gonna say.”
“Why you were grounded,” David prompted.
“Oh, right. Well, it wasn’t anything really, I was just…pissed and…and rode around about half the night. I was in Dad’s new car, if you noticed, and that kinda did me in.”
David laid a hand on his nearest shoulder. “Well, do what you can, ’cause I sure do want you with me!”
“Yeah,” Alec said slowly, blinking again. “I will. Maybe if I make it clear that
you
asked…”
David heaved a sigh of relief. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
“No,” Alec replied hesitantly, “I…I won’t.”
David frowned again. “You
sure
you’re okay?”