Reluctantly Charmed (36 page)

I shrugged.
It’s just a collection of old rocks
, I thought. And suddenly the very idea of being scared of standing in a fairy fort amused me.
Superstitious nonsense
, I thought. I started to jump up and down on the spot, waving my arms around like an Indian performing a rain dance in a low-budget Western. “Helloo, fairies! I’m here! Come on out and play.” I felt the wig plastered to my face. “Yoo-hoo, fairies!” I was laughing so hard now, I thought I couldn’t breathe. I whipped my wig off and began whirling it into the air, shaking my own hair free at last. “God, that feels good,” I said aloud. I kept pounding out my rain dance—somehow, thumping the ground relieved me of my own frustrations of the last few weeks. Jump, thump, stomp: the rhythmic beating felt therapeutic. The dancing felt good, the jumping, the thumping, the stomping.

And then it happened. The magic. As I raised my giant Frankenstein boot in the air to exit the fort, I felt a tight squeeze across my stomach, like a band had wrapped around me. I was being pulled back into the fairy fort. Like a tug of war, I pulled forward, heaving myself outward, but something or someone was tugging at me with more force than I could combat. I tried to step out again. My foot hung in the air. I leaned back to regain my balance and then pushed with all my strength. Just as quickly I was rocked back into the fort. Winded, I fell and landed on my back in the center. The ground was soggy from the rain. I struggled to my knees and stood upright again. With gritted teeth I swung around, spinning, and screamed into the rain. “Let me
leave!” I shouted. Then I marched with steely determination to the edge of the fort. “Let me leave!” I shouted again, before closing my eyes and raising my boot. I felt a gentle push on my lower back, and I stumbled out of the fort.

I spun around to see who had pushed me, and I heard him, loud and clear. “Spoilsport.”

I looked for him in the shadows. There was no one there. But I knew who was there. I just couldn’t see him, but he was there—my fairy friend, Paudi O’Shea.

It all came back and it was real. It wasn’t something from a dream or from my imagination. It,
he
, was a part of my childhood. He’d been my imaginary friend, and he wasn’t Paulie, like Mam remembered. He was Paudi, the fabulous Paudi O’Shea. We’d played in my back garden, climbing trees, singing songs, dancing, playing, hurling, and laughing—more than anything I remembered the laughing. And I remembered his face: he had a grin that wrapped around him, apple-shaped cheeks that filled up when he laughed and eyes as green as the hills of Knocknamee. And he was small: not put-in-your-pocket small, but smaller than me as a child—maybe the size of a large dog. He wore bright-colored jackets in blue or purple with shiny gold buttons as big as his hand.

It was Paudi O’Shea who gave me my fairy name. He’d popped up in my dreams and whispered ideas to me. He was always looking out for me, even now I was grown up. I felt giddy and excited to see him again. Well, I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was there in the fairy fort.

I spun around wildly in circles with my arms flung out, around and around. Paudi O’Shea was there! I was ecstatic. He was here in Knocknamee! My heart was leaping out of me with happiness. “You’re here! You’re here!” I shouted into the fort.

I skipped and ran through the fields. Somehow it felt like Paudi O’Shea was hopping along beside me, telling me to wait, like he did when I was a girl.
Those forts are magical
, I thought,
magical
. Paudi O’Shea was my wonderful secret, and I was going to keep him that way, for a little while, anyway. I ran for as long and as far as I could, until the village was safely in my sights, and then, when my wig was back in place, I smiled and skipped the whole way back, feeling like there was a second heart beating in my body.

Martin knocked softly on my door and dipped his head inside. “Kate, there’s a Hugh Delaney downstairs to see you. Will I send him up?”

Hugh? What was Hugh doing here?

I nodded and quickly ran to the mirror to straighten out my hair and fix the gray V-neck T-shirt I was wearing. I looked tired, so I pinched my cheeks to put some color into them, an old-school trick I’d seen in a film once.

I heard Hugh noisily enter the room and turned around. He looked angry. His face was red, his brow creased, his mouth downturned, and his nostrils flared. The room immediately shrank in size. He held up a fistful of newspapers and waved them wildly.

“Is this you?”

I knew he’d discovered the clippings, the press, heard the drama, seen the tents, maybe even read the Steps on the Internet.

I took a deep breath. “Hi, Kate, nice to see you. How are you? I’m fine, Hugh.” I slowly pottered over to the chair on the far side of the room and sat down. Calmly.

His breathing was heavy. He pursed his mouth. “It
is
you.”

“Lovely weather we’re having. Mild for this time of year,” I continued in a singsong voice, deliberately ignoring his posturing, waiting for him to calm down.

“Jesus, Kate.” He stomped over to the window and stared out of it.

“Whenever you’re ready to calm down, you can sit down,” I said, sternly, eyeing him.

He paused, exhaled deeply, and physically shrank a few inches. Slowly he walked to the side of my bed and sat down, still tightly clutching the papers in his hand.

“What the hell is this?”

“This? This is my life right now.”

“They’re calling you a freak.”

It stung, the way he said it.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

I shrugged. I knew he probably deserved an explanation. “I just wanted to be me. You’ve no idea how mixed up everything has been. I’m exhausted, avoiding it. I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. Maybe because of this—how you’d react.”

He shook his head. “You don’t trust me.”

“I don’t know you to trust you.”

“I . . .” His eyes widened and his mouth hung open. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fly in here at you. I just . . . I read these things, and I thought I knew you, but now I don’t know.”

I sighed. “You still know me. I don’t know who that person is that they write about.”

“Is it . . .” He paused to study my expression. “Is it true?”

I nodded. “Some of it, definitely. I’m trying to understand it, but, yes, some of it’s true.” And so I started telling him what had happened, and I told him everything. Told him about meeting my fairy again, about making stupid mistakes with Jim, about knowing
spells, about the paparazzi hunting me down, about Maura creeping around and threatening me, about how I was scared, really scared, but also weirdly happy. I didn’t even notice when he moved and sat beside me and put his arm around my shoulders.

“I’m hoping it’s nearly over, but I’m not sure,” I said. “It’s only another four days until I get the final Step. I think that will be the end then.”

He squeezed me tightly. “You’ve managed to hold it together. I would never have guessed you were going through something like that.”

“Until now.” I laughed, shaking my head.

“Well, I’m glad I get the real Kate McDaid. You know, the no-bullshit Kate, the shoot-from-the-hip Kate.” He gently tucked my hair back behind my ears. His expression was kind. And then precisely at that moment, he changed. Thrusting his hands into his jeans pockets, he leaned away from me and his face hardened. “I should go.”

“What? You just fly in and fly out, do you?”

“It’s just . . .” He looked around the room.

Annoyed and frustrated, I responded deadpan. “Just go.” I crossed my arms firmly across my middle. What was it with Hugh Delaney and how he never ceased to cause my blood to boil at one stage or another?

He stood up. “I left Setanta in the car. There’s something I have to do. I’ll, em . . .” He looked around the room. “Give you a call.”

I shrugged at him, trying to calm my anger.
Go, Hugh Delaney, go. Go back to your glamorous blonde and your normal life and stop confusing the hell out of me.

31

T
he carnival arrived late Saturday evening, with lights that flashed as brightly as Times Square, outshining the stars in the navy sky of Knocknamee. The lights promised endless entertainment: wheels of fortune, bumper cars, mountains of pillowed cotton candy, waltzers, a giant big wheel, and a gaggle of gypsies peering into crystal balls and turning tarot cards.

Johnny Logan admitted to me that he was annoyed with himself for not having thought of it sooner. He should have gotten the gypsies in a long time ago—wasn’t that what people were interested in? The carnival was paying him 10 percent of all profits, so he was happy enough, just as long as none of those tigers escaped.

A few of the gypsies were claiming to be me or another descendant of Kate McDaid. Four of them had rinsed henna into their hair and hung signs saying
THE REAL KATE MCDAID
outside their caravans. All four were making money. The Anoraks stood patiently in line, gossiping among themselves about the Steps. I slid past them, wig on and my own anorak zipped tight up to my neck. I had already played and lost three rounds of darts, taken one stomach-heaving spin on the waltzer, and had almost gone on the big wheel before I chickened out, convinced that it was about to roll down the hill of its own accord. My disguise was
holding up well. All around me people were clutching photos of Kate McDaid, yet there hadn’t been one quizzical look or prolonged stare. I was blending right in.

Fiona and Lily were due that day. They’d called me excitedly from the road, singing songs at the top of their lungs, ecstatic to be out of Dublin and hitting the road. It had only been a week since Fiona had quit her job, but it felt like a year, and I was dying to see them. I’d booked them into Martin’s B and B.

Matthew had arrived in Knocknamee, as I knew he would—not in a psychic way, but in a best-friend way. He was staying in Miles O’Brien’s B and B, along with some of the more stubborn mice who refused to be exterminated. Over a toasted sandwich at Martin’s, Matthew apologized until he was blue in the face. I forgave him—I’d forgiven him a long time ago. He finally filled me in on the shoot. David Hasselhoff had managed to get another day to shoot the Starshoot ad, and, according to Matthew, it looked really good. It was kitschy and retro, but it worked. And the best news of all was that we had both been promoted. I couldn’t even believe I still had a job, but Matthew just rolled his eyes and explained that Colin had put me on stress leave. My job was there, I’d been promoted, and somehow, in spite of all the madness, we’d made a good ad. This had been exactly what I’d wanted only a few weeks earlier. This had been my dream. And now, with all that had happened, now that I had my fairy, now that I knew about my connection with the other world, the promotion, the job, and chocolate bars seemed like they belonged to another life, a faraway life. Things were changing.

After lunch, Matthew and I wandered down to O’Donahue’s for a pint. It was six deep at the bar. There wasn’t a pocket of air. With the keen eyes of an experienced publican, Annie spotted me from behind a pyramid of pint glasses. She was keeping her
cool and managing to stay in control, in spite of the shouts for Guinness all around her. She threw me a ginormous and unsubtle wink, shouting
“fan”
—the Irish word for wait. Then, picking up two full pints she’d just poured, she came out from behind the counter and moved with great ease through the crowd.

“You’ll be wanting seats,” she said, eyeing Matthew up and down.

“Ah, it’s grand, you’re busy. We’ll go for a walk or something,” I said.

“You’ll do no such thing.”

Annie turned to two large men who were speaking a harsh language that may have been Swedish. They were sitting on low stools, crouched uncomfortably over a small table. “You two. Out. You’re barred.”

The men furrowed their blond eyebrows in confusion. “But madam, we are drinking,” one said.

“Out.” Annie motioned toward the door.

“We’re paying customers.”

“Well, I don’t like the look of yis. Get out.”

They rose up off their stools and hovered over Annie like strong, blond oak trees. “Madam, we paid many euros.”

“Tell the guards. Get out.” She jutted out her jaw defiantly.

They stood still, rooted to the spot.

“Do I need to call security?” she spat back, unfazed by the sheer bulk of the men.

“No. Come on, Sven.” They lumbered toward the door, defeated.

“There you go now.” Plonking the full pints down, she cleared the table, then set the three stools around it. “Give Paddy a shout whenever you want another. I’ve got him behind the bar. I think he’s drinking more than he’s serving, but if he can manage to stay
upright for the rest of the night, I’ll have him back tomorrow.” She turned around and melted into the crowd.

Embarrassed, Matthew and I slowly slunk onto the stools, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

“Thank God she’s on our side,” Matthew whispered. He took a sip of his Guinness, eyes down, too scared to look in Annie’s direction.

I scanned the pub for a familiar face. The crowd seemed to be enjoying themselves, nursing pints and deep in heavy discussions. There were a lot of pens being waved, maps highlighted, and pages of what I guessed were the Steps being studied. These people were giving over a lot more time and effort to the whole thing than I was. I wondered how far they were getting, if anyone had cracked anything yet. I didn’t see any locals—they’d all been budged out.