What I Wore to Save the World

I wanted to grab him by the nightshirt and shake him to make him spill all this mysterious “truth” he’d just promised, but now that I knew he was actually on the Oxford admissions committee I figured I’d better play along.

I remembered that Colin’s grandfather was eighty-two. Mr. McAlister seemed slightly younger, but really, who could tell with old people?

He laughed, a smug, “gotcha” kind of laugh. “Seventy-six years ago, when you imagine me as a newborn, I was a grown man at the height of my profession. In fact, I was overseeing one of the first major renovations to Castell Cyfareddol: the addition of the reflecting pool.”

“Shut up!” I exclaimed. “So you’re not the grandson of Devyn McAlister at all. You are Devyn McAlister!”

He nodded modestly. “Indeed I am. That little flourish of putting ‘the third’ at the end of my name is yet another example of a necessary, though I hope harmless, deception—in order to avoid confusion, suspicion, ceaseless medical examinations . . . You can understand that, can’t you?”

“I definitely can.” I did the math in my head. “No offense, Mr. McAlister, but shouldn’t you be, like, dead by now?”

He sighed. “No doubt I would be, if my career as an architect had taken a more traditional route. Bank buildings, stately homes, the occasional monument to fallen war heroes—a nice, normal career followed by a nice, normal demise.” He sounded almost nostalgic for the missed opportunity to croak. “But instead, I devoted myself completely to this.”

He waved a hand loosely around, in a way that encompassed far more than the Tip of the Iceberg cottage. “Castell Cyfareddol was—and is—my life’s work. But there came a fateful moment when the place took on what one might literally call a life of its own.” He leaned forward, an excited gleam in his eye. “Have you noticed how reality seems so fluid around here?”

“That?” He gestured dismissively. “Pure stagecraft. A fancy bit of plumbing, really. No, I mean how reality is heightened—almost to the point of feeling like make-believe.”

I thought of the unicorns. “And how things that ought to be make-believe start to seem—or be—real?” I asked hesitantly.

“Precisely. Now, make no mistake: Even as I originally designed it, Castell Cyfareddol was unprecedented! A vision of all the architectural styles of the world, living together in peace and harmony, nestled in a veritable paradise of nature’s glory, with a color palette so varied, so uninhibited—”

“Well put! I love Starbursts,” he agreed. “But the critics scorned my creation. They called it ‘McAlister’s folly,’ the vanity project of an overreaching architect who simply didn’t know when to stop.”

Mr. McAlister shrugged. “None of that bothered me. My vision was beautiful and strange, and the public appreciated it even when my colleagues failed to understand. But something happened when I added the reflecting pool. Something profound.”

I thought of the disorienting way the hotel was reflected in the pool. “It’s hard to know which one is which,” I murmured.

“Yes. The world of reality, the world of reflections—the pool makes them interchangeable. To my great surprise, the pool revealed itself to be a kind of doorway.”

He smiled indulgently. “Do you have to ask, Morganne? The dimension of magic and dreams has many names, but I believe you know it best as the faery realm.”

I shivered, suddenly cold. How did he know so much about what I knew? But he wasn’t finished.

“When I realized what I had inadvertently done by adding the pool, I was frightened, but fascinated. I did countless hours of research trying to understand the properties of these types of places—places where the two worlds intersect.”

“There are many other doorways, of course. Some are famous, like Stonehenge or the Bermuda Triangle. Some are known only to the local residents who still believe in such things: faery mounds, enchanted lagoons and so forth. Bodies of water and mirrors both tend to loosen the veil between the two worlds. So does any environment where the imagination has been allowed to run particularly free.”

“Lucky Lou’s. It’s a supermarket. A very imaginative supermarket,” I explained, thinking of all the animatronic creatures in the store. “I had a kind of magical experience in there once.”

“Interesting. And of course, because they live so much in the imagination, young children are often ‘doorways’ too, though generally in a minor, playful way.”

He furrowed his silvery eyebrows in concentration. “Somehow, the pool, which is, of course, filled with water and designed to act as a mirror to the hotel, combined with the highly imaginative ambience of Castell Cyfareddol, and perhaps even the fact that we have so many children as guests—it’s quite a popular family vacation destination, you know—created an ‘open border’ between our world and theirs. Or theirs and ours, depending on how you look at it.”

I had so many questions I didn’t know where to start. “But, Mr. McAlister—I mean, you were a normal human person, originally, right? So what happened? I mean, obviously you’ve aged, so it’s not like you’ve become—”

“Immortal? Hardly!” He laughed. “Most portals to the faery realm are like doors: they stay shut except when someone or something is passing through. The reflecting pool is more like a window that’s been left half-open. Because of it, the whole of Castell Cyfareddol is half-magic, all the time. If I were living in faery time, I’d be immortal. In normal human time, I’d be dead. But I’ve lived my whole adult life in this half-magic place—”

“Exactly. You might have heard that celebrities like to vacation at Castell Cyfareddol? That’s because they feel oddly refreshed by their visits here.”

“Because as long as they’re here, they’re aging at half the rate they ought to be—is that it?”

He nodded. “The outward evidence is too subtle for the human eye to see, but the experience of aging at half-time creates an indefinable sense of well-being. The more sensitive ones have figured it out. Madonna comes twice a year,” he confided.

This was a lot of mind-blowing information to take in. The idea of aging at half-time was kind of awesome to think about, but many creepy possibilities suddenly came to mind. For instance, what if I stayed here and Colin left? Twenty years from now I’d look twenty-seven, and he’d be forty, which (even though I’d still love him madly) would be slightly ewww. And how long would it take for Tammy and I to look the same age?

“The ‘fountain of youth’ aspect of Castell Cyfareddol is a strictly guarded secret, and it needs to stay that way.” Mr. McAlister sounded stern. “Imagine the insanity—the tabloids—the hordes of desperate, youth-crazed people sneaking onto the grounds day and night!”

“The one asking you to come here and save the world?” He smiled sadly. “No, my dear. I wish it were that simple. Controlling the publicity ‘spin’ of Castell Cyfareddol is a relatively simple matter. I have it well in hand.”

My hands flew to cover my big, ginormous blabber mouth. “Wait. So you already know about the message Colin received?”

“I know what the message said. I don’t know where it came from, or what it means.” He saw the confusion on my face. “Morgan, I may be ridiculously old, exceedingly well-educated and occasionally deceitful, but I’m only human. I have no power to read minds. Or do magic,” he added.

“I saw the picture on his cell phone. Quite by accident, I assure you! I misplaced my oPhone while at the Seahorse Cottage to play cards with William and—oh dear, this will make me sound rather senile, I’m afraid—I wanted to call my own number so I could find the phone by its ring.”

“Colin handed me his phone, I pressed the wrong button and, voila! There was the picture. Because of my long study of these types of phenomena, I recognized it at once as a message from the faery realm. And I knew who you were. I studied you at school, you know!”

“The half-goddess Morganne,” he went on, clearly enjoying himself. “Heroine of myth and legend. When the faery realm is in danger, Morganne always comes back to save the day.”

“There are other people named Morgan, you know,” I protested lamely. “Morgan Fairchild. Morgan Freeman.”

“Perhaps. But the way Colin spoke about you, I knew you must be no ordinary girl. And you fit every description I’ve ever read—and I’ve read them all.”

He saw the puzzled look on my face. “My dear, you are speaking to an Oxford graduate! During my quest to become expert in the lore of faeries I have had access to the finest library of ancient and esoteric texts ever assembled on either side of the veil. Haven’t you heard of the Bod?”

“Heavens, no! ‘The Bod’ is what scholars call the Bodleian Library, at Oxford. Dear old Bod! It was always one of my favorite haunts on campus. The treasures it contains! Shakespeare’s first folio. The Magna Carta. The Gutenberg Bible. And other, rarer books as well.” He lowered his voice, though there was no one to hear us. “Books that are beyond ancient. Books that come from . . . the other side.”

“So you’re saying there are actual books from the faery realm in the library at Oxford?” Try to beat that, UConn, I thought.

He nodded. “It’s called the Special Collection. Only a handful of students and faculty have ever been given access. You might be surprised to learn which of your favorite authors were ‘inspired’ by actual faery texts. Of course, there are many works attributed to humans—Shakespeare, for example—that experts believe actually did originate in the other realm. It’s a fascinating topic of study.”

All this information was making my head spin, so much so that I was starting to feel queasy. Or maybe I was getting seasick. But I couldn’t be—I mean, we were in a cottage on land, not an actual ship at sea, right?

I took a deep breath to clear my head. “Mr. McAlister. This strange message, about me saving the world—can you guess what it means?”

He looked grim. “I regret to say I haven’t a clue. But I will certainly assist in whatever way I can as you endeavor to find out. To be frank, it’s a matter of professional interest! And now, if I may ask you a question, Morganne—or Mor gan, if that’s how you prefer to be known—how did Colin come across that message in the first place?”

“A unicorn?” Mr. McAlister leaped up from his chair. “Oh my goodness! That is simply unprecedented. Things are getting out of hand. Something is wrong; very wrong indeed.”

He paced around the tiny room, gesturing wildly. “The fact that you’ve been summoned at all indicates that this is truly a crisis. And unicorns!” Then he looked at me, quite grave. “You must go find them at once.”

“Tomorrow could be too late!” He was so agitated, his Scrooge nightcap was bouncing up and down. “Understand this: No magical creatures are more passionate about keeping their existence hidden than the unicorns. They would never have revealed themselves to a human if it weren’t a dire emergency.”

“I’ll go tonight, then.” I stood up too. “I’ll sneak out as soon as Colin and Grandpap are asleep.”

“Good. And remember, all of us—the whole world—will be counting on you, Morganne,” he said ominously.

I yawned in spite of myself. The thought of wandering the woods alone in the middle of the night was not making me happy, but Mr. McAlister was in a full-blown panic and I figured there must be a reason. “Yeah, I get that. I just hope these unicorns can explain what the fek is going on. Whoops! Sorry about the language, it’s a bad habit.”

“No need to apologize,” he said. There was no mistaking the fear in his eyes. “I was thinking precisely the same thing.”

mr. mcalister offered to walk me back to the Seahorse, but once he pointed me in the right direction I could see the lights up the path. It wasn’t very far. And, face it, the guy was like a hundred and fifty years old, plus he was already in his pajamas. What kind of bodyguard could I really expect him to be? I assured him I’d be fine.

I was worried that Colin would quiz me about my new-found expertise in mansard roofs and fluted whatchamacall ems, but apparently I’d been at Mr. McAlister’s a lot longer than I’d planned. By the time I got back to the Seahorse, Grandpap was snoring in the back bedroom and Colin was stretched out asleep on the living room sofa. I tried to be quiet and get to the stairs without waking him, but he rolled over and started mumbling.

“Everything’s fine.” I knelt by the sofa and smooched him on the forehead. “How’s Grandpap?”

“Couldn’t find his glasses; lookin’ at the cards was givin’ him a headache, that’s all.” He rolled over to face me but his eyes stayed closed. “Tell me about the fluted thingies.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I whispered. He was out cold again. There was a crocheted afghan thrown over the back of the sofa—in a seashell pattern, of course. I tucked it around Colin’s legs and turned off the light.

I knew I should grab some Z’s too, considering what I needed to do that night. But there was something I wanted to check first. After I tippytoed my way upstairs I made a beeline for my suitcase.

The Oxford brochure was still tucked in the outer pocket, wrinkled from its travels but perfectly readable. The idea that there was a secret library at Oxford containing ancient faery books—books that mentioned me, no less—was so mind-boggling, I just wanted to see if there was a photograph of the building anywhere.

The Bod, the Bod, the Bod. I flipped the pages. I could have sworn there was a picture . . .

I found it. It was an old photo; judging from the clothes I’d say it was from the 1920s. The caption read:

Three Oxonians confer on the steps of the Bodleian Library. From left to right: J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, D. McAlister.

There he was, third Oxonian from the left, chillin’ with his soon-to-be-famous home skillets in those wild, wacky, pre-Narnia, pre-hobbit days at school, many decades before Orlando Bloom was even born. He looked younger, of course, but it was Mr. McAlister, no question.

That’s why he seemed familiar to me, I thought. I’ve been looking at his picture for the past two days.

Wait—so Mr. Phineas was also at Oxford in the olden days? Was also somehow drinking the antiaging Kool-Aid? Had also failed to get the memo that men’s pants had gotten significantly longer since 1925?

Or maybe that was his father in the picture, and the Mr. Phineas I’d met was really a “junior.” Or maybe it was no relation, a different Phineas altogether. It was impossible to tell from the photo, since the guy identified as C. Phineas was standing behind the other three and holding a book in front of his face.

I got in bed, still dressed, and set my travel alarm. Half an hour should be enough of a power nap to keep me going. All I had to do was make my escape without waking Colin or Grandpap.

The question briefly crossed my mind: What would Colin think if caught me sneaking out? Would he be amused? Puzzled? Furious?

I shoved the alarm under my pillow so only I would hear it. Sorry it has to be this way, honey, I thought, as I drifted off. But I need to talk to the unicorns alone . . .