Unlucky Charms (The Cold Cereal Saga) (18 page)

“At this point our plan is mostly hoping it won’t be.”

Scott glanced at the snake again. “Do you think that thing is from Pretannica? Maybe it isn’t even a regular snake. Maybe it’s magic or, like, an enchanted prince.”

Polly walked up as he said this. “You should definitely kiss it,” she said.

“Ha ha. Shut up. Speaking of enchanted princes—”

Just then Fi surfaced from Polly’s jacket pocket. “Well met, Scott,” he said.

“Oh. Oh, hey, Fi. I didn’t think you liked pockets.”

“It’s been brought to my attention recently that I should try new things,” said the prince.

Mick hopped down the stairs with two walkie-talkies. “Got ’em,” he said. “We ready to do this?”

“Ready if you are,” said Emily.

“Wait,” Scott said to Mick. “Are you going to Pretannica right now? And a walkie-talkie? That’s never going to work, is it?”

Emily took one of the walkie-talkies from Mick. “We know it will, thanks to your mom’s research. Remember? She said so in an email.”

“Asking her all those scientific questions was your idea,” Scott reminded Emily. “I was mostly skimming to make sure she hadn’t been kidnapped by Freemen.”

“Well,” said Emily. “Her research showed that all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum bounced back from the rift in Antarctica except radio waves.”

Mick got in position where the octagon was drawn and said, “This abou’ right, kids?”

Scott narrowed his eyes. The shimmering octagon was transposed over and around and through Mick—he couldn’t believe the elf couldn’t feel it. “Step just a hair to your left. That’s good.”

“So now what?” said Polly. “We just wait for something Mick’s size to wander by on the other side?”

“That’s right.”

Polly fidgeted. “That sounds like it’ll take forever. I’m gonna get a snack.”

“No, Polly, please stay,” said Emily. “We may need help with whatever comes across.”

Mick looked anxious but excited. “Goin’ home,” he muttered. “Never thought I’d see it. Scott? If … if somethin’ bad happens an’ I can’t get back, don’t yeh cry. Livin’ ou’ my days in a doomed world won’t be so bad if it’s home.”

“You … you don’t mean that.”

“I’m Irish. We all think we’re doomed anyway.”

It would have been a good exit line, but the truth was they had to wait another fifteen minutes before anything happened. But then it happened. Polly gasped, so Scott knew she saw it, too. He didn’t think Mick and Emily realized anything was going on. Mick’s shape grew dark, flat, and then it joined with another shape, something sharp eared and bushy tailed and quadrupedal. Behind Scott, the adder hissed. Then Mick was gone, and a fox was in the basement instead.

It crouched low and darted off to a corner as Polly made a grab for it. Scott took a cage from the stack and tried to help her, but the little fox was everywhere, its claws ticking on the hard floor—up and down the stairs, nearly bitten by the adder, U-turning around Emily, who so far hadn’t even gotten up from where she was sitting.

“Come in, Mick,” she said into the walkie-talkie. “Are you there? Over.”

The radio crackled. “It’s IRELAND!” said Mick. “I’d know it wi’ my eyes closed. An’ the
glamour
! Sweet Danu, the glamour. I’m gettin’ fluthered on it. Um, over.”

“Hmm,” said Emily to the others as they scrambled around her. “If it leads to Ireland, then the snake can’t be from the rift. There are no snakes in Ireland, you know.” The fox turned, an orange firecracker, and the Doe kids turned too, their sneakers scuffing, Scott accidentally whanging Polly with the metal cage. “I bet a lot of little Pretannican rodents and things trade places with all the bugs down here, and the adder just realized this basement made for easy hunting.” Emily spoke into the radio. “Mick, it’s going to be a minute before we extract you, we have a rogue fox situation in the basement. Over.”

“No rush. Over.”

“Now that I think about it,” Emily told Scott and Polly and Fi, who had just managed to maybe corner the thrumming little fox with the cage and a jacket, “we should have started out with Mick already in the cage. Then the fox would have just popped up in there. I’m sorry, I’ve been so distracted.”

Finally they coaxed the animal into the hutch, and everyone seemed relieved, fox included. They put it back in position over the rift.

“Mick, fox is in the henhouse. Over.”

“Is that a code yeh just made up to mean it’s back on the rift? Over.”

“Yes. Over.”

Maybe thirty seconds passed, and then the fox’s form went dark, and was conjoined with Mick’s, and then it was just the leprechaun in the cage, looking sort of magnificent.

“Get me out of this thing,” he said, smiling.

“Mick!” said Emily, jumping to her feet. “I can see you! Is that really what you look like?”

“More wrinkled than I recall,” said Fi.

Scott opened the cage door, so Mick tossed him a tip—a gold coin, almost worn smooth, the faintest portrait of a bearded king on its obverse side, a dragon on the other.

“Where’d you get this?” asked Scott.

“Found it,” said Mick. He was grinning from ear to ear. “An’ for the lady,” he added, and handed Emily something small and green.

A four-leaf clover.

CHAPTER 19

Scott had slept in the afternoon, and so wasn’t tired at night. And that was good—someone had to watch Emily. Erno was certain that she’d somehow told Nimue and Goodco their location in her dreams, and she couldn’t really assure them that this wasn’t the case. Scott was to watch her and try to wake her at the first sign of any disturbance in her sleep.

“But it’s not Nimue I keep dreaming of, it’s my mom,” she told Scott as she crawled into bed. She had tired eyes. Old eyes. “Why isn’t he just here? Dad. Mr. Wilson, I mean. He could just be here, waiting for us. He could just tell us things, instead of leaving us stupid games. You know Erno thinks the thing that was on the refrigerator is another clue? I’m too angry to look at it.”

“He’s helping us, at least, in his own way,” said Scott, taking a chair.

“I wonder if he’s still taking it. The Milk. I mean, I know it was messing me up, but Scott! I’m getting dumber!”

Scott winced. “I’m not sure you are—”

“I think I am. I don’t know. I can’t say anything for sure without doing some tests. But I think one thing’s clear: I’m not going to get any smarter.”

Scott smiled. “I wouldn’t worry—you’re smart enough already.”

But Emily looked at him squarely, soberly. “No. Think about what I’m saying.” She blinked her red eyes. “You don’t realize it maybe, but you’re always discovering new doors and stepping into bigger worlds. Bigger and better worlds, with more doors to open. As long as you keep learning, your world gets bigger. Mine’s just shrinking, now.”

Scott hesitated until he was sure of his answer. “You got a bigger world than I’m ever going to, though. You got that.”

“And I got to visit, and now I have to come back to the basement.”

Scott looked at his hands.

“Help me fall asleep,” said Emily. “Tell me a story.”

“I don’t know any stories.”

“Please.”

“You know who has good stories? Merle. I mean, he was the
wizard of King Arthur’s court
. Merle!”

Merle poked his head in. “What’s up?”

“Tell me a story,” said Emily. “About the sword in the stone.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” said Scott. “Was that real?”

“Sure,” said Merle. “Sort of.”

“So … nobody but Arthur could pull the sword out? Was it a Fay spell? Or was it really a sign from God that Arthur was rightful king of England or …”

Merle was smirking. “It was magnets.”

They stared.

“Maybe I should begin a little earlier,” said Merle. “I told you about Vortigern, Scott, and the whole tower-and-dragons debacle. That gave me a bit of a reputation as a wise guy. So maybe you know that King Uther Pendragon was Arthur’s father.”

Scott made a sour face. He didn’t like this story. King Uther squabbles with the Duke of Tintagel, and invites the duke to his castle. During the visit, Uther falls madly in love with the duke’s wife, Igraine. The duke and Igraine flee, so later Uther gets Merlin to disguise him as the duke while his forces are fighting the real duke on the battlefield. Igraine thinks Uther is her husband, and they spend a night together, the same night her actual husband is killed in battle. After Igraine learns her husband has been killed, she wonders who that fake duke was, but she keeps the whole thing to herself, and when Uther proposes marriage, she says yes. Months later she gives birth to Arthur and tells her husband that the son belongs to a mystery man who looked like the duke, and Uther says, “Surprise! It was me,” and everyone’s happy. Then they give up Arthur to Merlin, because that was the deal. It was an all-around gross story.

“Calm down,” said Merle. “I know you’ve read the books, but it didn’t turn out like that. Of course,
I
had read the books too, so when Uther’s man Sir Ulfius comes to me wanting help with his king’s love life, I’ll admit I didn’t know what to do. I think,
If I don’t help Uther, then Arthur is never born
, and that’s a tragedy. But this is a terrible thing to do to Igraine. So I tell Uther I can help, not knowing what I’m going to do right up until the night itself. And that night King Uther is drinking a lot of wine ’cause he’s nervous, and Sir Ulfius is drinking a lot of wine, and I’m trying to come up with a way to disguise us all and make this work, maybe something with fake mustaches, and finally I panic and put everybody to sleep.”

Scott frowned. “Then what?”

“Then nothing. I rode them back to the castle, and when they woke up the next morning I told them the plan had gone off perfectly.”

“What?”

“I saw the look of doubt on Uther’s face, right, but I explained that people shape-shifted by the spell I used might experience a little memory loss. After that he looked happy, and if Uther was happy, there was no way Ulfius was going to argue. But in the back of my mind I feel a little weird, because I didn’t do my duty. Arthur would never be born. Then nine months later Arthur was born.”

“How?”

“Arthur was the duke’s son. He was
always
the duke’s son. But Uther says to Igraine, ‘I know how your son was really conceived—on the night your late husband was killed, a man with his likeness came to you.’ And Igraine was like, ‘Uh, no, that never happened,’ but Uther insisted and said, ‘Fear not! For I was that man, ensorcelled to resemble the duke! Ha ha!’

“So Igraine’s probably like, ‘He thinks this is his son? Okay, great! Awesome. He’s an idiot, but whatever.’ Because Igraine was probably expecting Uther would just have the baby killed. Son of your enemy, and you don’t want to look weak, right?”

“And they gave baby Arthur to you?” said Emily softly.

“Yeah. That was the deal the books said I made, so that was the deal I made, and like I said, I think Igraine was just thrilled not to have any of her family members murdered. She married her daughters Elaine and Morgause off to rich guys, and put her youngest, Morgan, in a nunnery, all at Uther’s request.”

“Morgan—that’s Morgan le Fay, the sorceress, right?” asked Scott.

“Yeah. I realize now she must have been a changeling. I mean, not a changeling like you and Polly and your dad, who’re mostly human with a little drop of fairy in you. I mean an Old World fairy, swapped in the cradle, who doesn’t realize she’s not really human—that kind of changeling. Anyway, you wanted to know about the sword in the stone.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“So I take baby Arthur away to this really nice knight I know, Sir Ector, who’s recently had a son of his own. And Sir Ector and his wife raise Arthur, and I sort of help teach the boy things I think he needs to know. And I really grow to love this boy. He’s a great kid. In another age he’d have made a great scientist.

“But during this time King Uther gets sick and dies, and England kind of falls apart a little. Everyone’s vying to be the guy who takes over and rules as the new king, because Uther didn’t leave any heirs. So I do what I’m supposed to, and I tell the Archbishop of Canterbury to demand that all the lords and gentlemen come to London at Christmastime, upon pain of cursing—”