What I Wore to Save the World by Maryrose Wood Page B

heavy metal bands rocked the night away in two-hundred-year-old pubs. What would he say if he found out his very own Morgan, the bad-ass American girl whom he’d taken for a band chick when he first met me, was really a magical half-goddess from Ye Quaint Olde Days of Irish lore?
    Would he think I was insane? Or worse, ridiculous? Some stupid fairy-tale character, like a cheap plastic toy you’d get by sending in the top of a Lucky Charms cereal box plus $3.95 shipping and handling?
    Or would he be too mad at me to care, once he found out that I’d basically been lying to him since the first day we met?
    Correction: It was more like the third day. But still.
    Fek, I thought, as I stared out the window at the swirl of gray clouds below. If my goddess half gets busted in front of Colin, I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do.
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    after my flight landed at heathrow i followed the crowds and the signs and figured out how to get through customs and retrieve my suitcase from the luggage carousel. I was briefly stumped trying to find the terminal where Colin had instructed me to catch the bus to Wales, but once I realized the buses were called “coaches” I figured it out. The idea of traveling by coach made me feel like I might be going to Wales in a pumpkin pulled by enchanted mice, which would hardly surprise me at this point.
    When it was my turn at the ticket window I read the information directly off the itinerary from Colin, to make sure I got it right. “One round-trip to Castell Cyfareddol, please.”
    The clerk looked at me like I had a horn growing out of my forehead.
    â€œPardon me, miss—but where did you say you were going?”
    â€œI must be pronouncing it wrong.” I pressed the sheet of paper against the glass so he could see. “This place. It’s in Wales.”
    He looked at the paper, then back at me, an expression of total horror on his face. “KASSul Kuh-FAIR-uh-doll? Why on earth would you want to go there?” Then he removed a pencil from behind his ear and tapped it on the glass to make sure he had my attention, even though I was already looking at him.
    â€œCastell Cyfareddol is a profoundly silly place,” he said ominously. “The type of destination that attracts budget-minded couples on second honeymoons. Rock stars on ironically low-brow vacations. Disgraced members of the royal family hiding from the paparazzi.” He leaned down and spoke in a fearful hiss through the hole in the bottom of the ticket window. “Personally I can’t imagine going there. Speaking for myself, I would rather go nearly anyplace but there.”
    What a head case, I thought. This guy could definitely use a dose of my mom’s Xanax.
    Thanks to my dad, my wallet was pimped out with my very own AmEx card for traveling. I pushed the card through the window. “Awesome.” I smiled, trying to be friendly. “It sounds like a total piss. How much did you say the ticket was?”
    He scowled back at me from under his wire-rimmed glasses. “Forty non-refundable pounds. And for a mere one pound extra you can buy insurance against accidents that are highly likely to befall your person, including loss of life, loss of limb, loss of personal property and personal liability in case of unforeseen but practically inevitable catastrophe—”
    All I knew was I didn’t come all this way just to miss my coach. “Just give me the ticket,” I growled, switching to my scariest deadpan death glare.
    â€œForty pounds, then. It’s hardly worth it. ‘Castell Cyfareddol, ’ ugh!” You could practically hear the quote marks of distaste in his voice as he punched the information into the ticket machine. “You know what it means, don’t you? ‘Magic Castle.’ Please! They might as well rename it ‘Dis neyland.’ ”
    The ticket finished printing. He pushed it through the window