Tyger Tyger (20 page)

"I'm being held prisoner," Aiden said. "Finn wouldn't let me go out, even though I could
see
Teagan!"

"Well, let's have some prison food, then, pratie," Mamieo said. "Since we're all in the lockup together now. I've just one thing to do before we eat. Where's your phone, girl?"

Teagan pulled it out of her pocket and turned it on. Surprisingly, she had three bars of service. She handed Mamieo the phone. The old woman held it at arm's length and squinted.

"Why do they make the numbers so small? Here." She handed it back. "You dial." Teagan punched in the numbers as Mamieo recited them, then gave the phone back to her.

"Jackie?" Mamieo said. "This is Ida. I need you to pick up three packages at the Dunes Park tomorrow morning. Yes, in Michigan." She listened for a moment. "Of course I know you're in Chicago. Where else would you be, man? I'll need you here by six a.m. You'll want to travel in sunlight on the way back to town, just to be safe."

She handed the phone back to Teagan. Someone was swearing loudly into the receiver on the other end.

"Just hang it up." Mamieo waved her hand. "He'll be here."

Teagan hung it up and took Aiden to the sink. She scrubbed his hands and then her own, promising herself she would ask about a shower as soon as they had eaten.

When they were all seated at the table, Mamieo bowed her head over the noodles. "Go
dtaga do ríocht,
" she said. "'May Thy kingdom come,' for those of you without the gift of tongues."

Mamieo did most of the talking during supper, covering many of the same things she'd told Teagan as they walked, about Mag Mell, Yggdrasil, and the memories of trees. Now and then Finn would ask a question, but Aiden was still playing at being a prisoner, so he ate slumped over his plate.

"Now for the most important part," Mamieo said after Teagan had cleared away the plates. She reached for a fortune cookie, hesitated, then took another instead.

"Go on, choose one, pratie," she said. "People can have a little fun, even in prison."

Aiden took a cookie, then Finn. Teagan picked up the last one.

Mamieo broke hers open and pulled the small paper out. "'Your rare talents will bring successes.' Well, that's good to know, isn't it? What does yours say, Finn?"

"'Your life is a daring and bold adventure,'" Finn read.

Mamieo clapped.

"Aiden?"

He handed his fortune to Teagan. "'You will make a new friend,'" she read.

She cracked her own cookie open and pulled out the ribbon of paper.

"'You love Chinese food.'"

Mamieo laughed. "Three out of four isn't bad. I'll need my makeup kit." She pushed herself to her feet, went to the bathroom, and came back with a little purple bag.

"This is the part I don't want any spying
cat-sídhe
to see." She emptied it onto the table, then sorted through old lipstick tubes—all of which seemed to be the same shade of pink—and almost-empty pill bottles.

"I wouldn't want them to see that, either," Aiden said. "Finn's purse has lots better stuff in it."

"Ha!" Mamieo held up an old-fashioned face powder compact. "Here it is." She popped it open, and goose bumps rose on Tea-gan's arms.

"It smells like ... Mag Mell," Teagan said.

"Mag Mell and dirty feet. I was a poorer woman when I fetched Aileen out of the place. The boots I wore had holes in them. When I took them off, I found that I'd brought a bit of Mag Mell with me. A bit of
draíocht.
This world is made of stardust and gases, you see, but Mag Mell ... she's made of glamour."

Mamieo powdered up the small puff and dabbed it on her face and nose. Teagan knew her mouth was hanging open, but she couldn't help it. Mamieo was ... beautiful. It wasn't that her wrinkles had disappeared. It was just that they didn't matter anymore.

The old woman laughed at the looks on their faces.

"I use it now and then, when I need to make a good impression, or negotiate a deal. So a bit of it floats around the place." She scooped up a tiny pinch of the dust. "Now, if I saw what I think I saw in the sunbeam this morning ... Come here, pratie."

"You're not putting makeup on me." Aiden backed away. "I don't want to be pretty."

"Of course you don't," Mamieo said. "And I'd do no such thing. I'm going to dribble a bit of it over your head while you sing. Come over here beneath my lamp."

Teagan nodded, and Aiden moved over under the light.

"Now, sing the song you sang when you read your
máthair'
s book. No—don't look up. Just sing."

Aiden frowned, but he started singing "Down on the Corner."

Mamieo rolled the dust between her fingers, and a fine line of it fell into Aiden's hair.

"Sing it like you mean it," Mamieo said. "Like you did this morning."

"I
felt
like it this morning." Aiden folded his arms. "But I don't feel like it now."

Mamieo's eyebrows went up. "What do you feel like, then, pratie?"

"'Jailhouse Rock,'" Aiden said.

"Sing that, then, if you must!"

Aiden started rocking like Elvis, pelvis wiggle and all. Mamieo trickled another pinch of dust over his head. It fell from her fingers, then slowed, spinning in the air and gathering light until it shone like gold.

He started the second verse and the dust spun harder, forming a tiny spiral galaxy that hovered above him like a crown. When he finished the song, the golden dust rained down around him like tiny falling stars.

"That's it," Mamieo breathed. "That's what I saw when he was reading his mother's books."

"But ... how can he do such a thing?" Finn asked. "I've never heard of such a gift amongst the Travelers. Is it from Aunt Aileen?"

"It must be," Mamieo said. "And if it does this to glamour dust, what will it do to Mag Mell herself ?"

"Would Teagan have the gift, too, then?" Finn asked.

"Tea can't sing," Aiden said. "She'll hurt your ears."

"Try it," Finn insisted.

Teagan sang while Mamieo trickled dust over her head. She could tell by the hands over Aiden's ears that the singing wasn't any good, and by the look on Finn's face that the dust wasn't spinning.

She sneezed. "It wasn't shining, was it?"

Finn grimaced. "Maybe it's the wrong song."

"Nope," Aiden said. "It's just bad singing. And it didn't make you any prettier, either."

Mamieo snapped her compact shut and stood up. "You two be deciding what you need to take with you. I'm going to teach the pratie a song."

"Socks," Finn said. "We'll need socks."

"Take them out of my drawer, then." Mamieo dragged Aiden toward the front of the motor home.

"Socks?"

"Never travel without clean socks," Finn said. "Your feet are that important."

"We need to fill the water bottles, too." Teagan took them to the sink.

Mamieo was singing to Aiden in the cab of the motor home. Her thin voice quavered, but Aiden wasn't shouting the way he did when Teagan sang.

"What is she teaching him?" Teagan asked when she took the water bottles back to Finn. He tipped his head and listened.

"
Atomriug indiu
niurt tríun
togairm Tríndóite
cretim treodatad
foísitin oendatad
i nDúilemon Dáil...
"

"It's 'Páadraig's Shield,'" Finn said. "It goes something like this:

'I arise today
with a mighty strength,
invoking the Trinity,
believing in the threeness,
confessing the oneness
of the Creator of Creation...'
"

Teagan leaned closer to hear his words. Electric arcs jumped between them, and her stomach went tight. Finn swallowed hard and backed away from her.

"Why don't you check Mamieo's medicine cabinet for anything that might be useful while I find the socks?" he said. "She won't mind."

"Salt," Teagan suggested, pretending she hadn't noticed that he was trying to get away. "Can we take salt?"

"It's only useful when they've left their true body behind." He was avoiding looking at her. "If we meet Kyle in Mag Mell, his body will be like ours."

"Got it." Teagan had to edge past him to get to the bathroom door. She slipped inside and shut it behind her.

There's been
just one name pounding in that boy's heart
ever
since he first saw you, hasn't there? Your name,
Teagan
Wylltson.
If Mamieo was right, Finn loved her. Which was ridiculous. Attraction can happen at first sight, sure. Electricity. But not love.

Unless you were a Traveler like the Mac Cumhaill. He's
asked too many questions about me and my
Rory.
About how
I've lived
alone all these years.
That's why Finn was avoiding her. He'd tried to explain it to her in the railyards.

I'd never
ask a girl to walk the roads I walk. The Mac Cumhaill never dies old and gray....
Not one ever
has. I'll not be leaving broken hearts behind me when I go.

But it was supposed to happen to you both at the same time, like it had to Ida and Rory.
What had happened when she first met Finn?
She wasn't sure throwing up was a sign of love. Was his name in her
heart?
Teagan frowned. She'd wondered about him while he was gone, sure. But he hadn't been constantly on her mind or anything. Does he
think I'm in love with him?

"It will take more than a few sparks and a stomachache, buster," Teagan said to herself as she jerked open the medicine cabinet. "This is about finding Dad."

She chose some sterile gauze, a plastic box of Band-Aids, and one Ace bandage. She couldn't decide what else might be useful. What do you pack when you're planning a rescue mission to hell?

JACKIE turned out to be a fat but punctual cabby, who wasn't pleased to be driving half a day without a fare. He'd nodded grimly at Mamieo as they crawled into the cab, then slammed the door and headed back to Chicago without saying a word.

If Teagan hadn't had time to clean up—though it had been a sponge bath rather than a shower, because there wasn't much water left in the Tank's reservoir—she'd have thought the look on the cabby's face was because they smelled bad.

As it was, she was sure it was just his personality, and the fact that he would be making two round trips today. He'd be headed back to Gary as soon as he dropped them off. Mamieo had decided to take the Tank and leave it at the old drive-in as a decoy, then have Jackie come back and take her to the Wylltsons' house to wait. She wanted to be nearby when they came out of Mag Mell.

Teagan had sent a text to Abby explaining as much as she could and asking her to get Mrs. Santini to let Mamieo in when she arrived.

 

"This is it." They were the first words Jackie'd spoken in the two hours since they'd climbed into his cab.

"It is," Finn said, eyeing the gates to the park behind the library. " Thank you."

The cabby grunted, and waited until they were almost out of the cab before he started away. Finn grabbed his kit and managed to swing the door shut, even though the cab was already moving.

"Okay." Teagan tried to ignore the tight, sick feeling in her stomach. "Let's go."

"Wait." Finn took his knife out of his boot and hid it in the bushes again. "Now we go."

Teagan couldn't make her feet move. Going into Mag Mell the first time had been easy because she hadn't known what was waiting for them beyond the trees. This time, she knew.

"Come on." Aiden took her hand. "Dad needs us." Teagan let him pull her along.

She felt the million tiny fingers rippling over her skin.
The memory of trees.

Then the touching stopped, and they were standing in Mag Mell. If it hadn't smelled like magic, Teagan would have been sure it was a different place entirely. They had stepped into a stand of tall conifer trees. There was no sound of a hunting pack, no fiddler's tune, just the buzz and hum of insects, and a whoosh of wind high in the trees.

"What do we do now?" Teagan asked.

Finn shrugged. "Mamieo said to try singing to Mag Mell. Why don't you try that song she taught you, my man?"

"She said that song's for if we meet bad guys." Aiden tipped his head, listening. He started humming, then singing softly.

"What song is that, then?" Finn whispered.

"Jim Croce's 'I Got a Name,'" Teagan whispered back.

"And
I carry it with me like my daddy did.
" Aiden was really belting it out now. "I'm
living the dream that he kept hid
..."

Suddenly, something
changed.
Even the wind in the treetops stopped. It was as if Mag Mell herself had paused to listen. And then the birds chimed in. They were singing with Aiden. When he reached the line about going down a highway, the trees and bushes moved, opening a path where there had been none before.

Aiden stopped singing and sucked in his breath. "I'm awesome!"

"Very, my man," Finn agreed. "Keep singing."

And he did. The forest thinned, and bees buzzed through honeysuckle-sweet air. It was ... beautiful. Teagan wondered where the fiddler was, and if he could hear Aiden's song. It was hard to imagine him in
this
Mag Mell. It was hard to imagine any goblin in this place.

They walked for an hour without seeing one frightening thing. Aiden would walk silently for a long time, listening, then burst into song, singing bits and pieces of several in a row, as if Mag Mell herself were changing the station when she grew tired of the lyrics.

Teagan giggled, and Aiden glanced at her.

"Tea, are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

More than fine. Was it Mag Mell, or walking near Finn? She didn't have to look at him to know where he was. Two steps behind her, to the left. She could feel him there like a warm glow. There's
been just one name pounding in that boy's heart
ever
since he first saw you, hasn't there?

"You're smiling," Aiden said. "You haven't done that in a long time."