Gansey avoided a third meaningful look from both Adam and Malory.
They reached the car, which had gotten no larger since they entered the terminal. Gansey disliked confronting the consequences of his folly so directly.
Ladies and gentlemen, my trick for you today will be to take this 1973 Camaro —
Removing the spare tire from the trunk, Gansey abandoned it beside a streetlight. The price of Malory’s visit.
— and fit five people, a dog, and a hell of a lot of luggage inside.
After performing this magic trick, he sank into the driver’s seat. The Dog was panting anxiously. Gansey knew how it felt.
“May I pet her? Him?” Blue asked.
“Yes,” Malory replied. “But he won’t enjoy it. He’s very highly strung.”
Gansey allowed Blue to exchange a meaningful glance with him in the rearview mirror as they got back onto the interstate.
“The food on the plane was appalling; it is amazing the staff has not perished of bleeding ulcers,” said Malory. He slapped Gansey’s arm so suddenly that both Gansey and the Dog jumped in surprise. “Do you know anything about the drapery that was lost to the English in Mawddwy?”
“Drapery? Oh. Oh. It had women with red hands on it? I thought they’d decided it was a flag,” Gansey said.
“Yes, yes, that’s the very one. You are good!”
Gansey thought he was no better than one would expect after seven years of fairly single-minded study, but he appreciated the sentiment. He raised his voice so as to include the backseat in the conversation. “It’s actually very interesting. The English pursued some of Glendower’s men, and though they got away, the English got ahold of this ancient drapery. Flag, whatever. The red hands are interesting because red hands are associated with the Mab Darogan, a mythic title. It was given to people like King Arthur and Llewellyn the Great and of course Owain Lawgoch —”
“Of course,” echoed Ronan sarcastically. “Of course Owain Lawgoch.”
“Don’t be such a shitbag,” Adam murmured.
“This lane ends,” Blue said.
“So it does,” Gansey said, merging. “Anyway, the Mab Darogan was a kind of Welsh ‘Son of Destiny.’ ”
Malory broke in, “Blame the poets. It’s easier to stir people to rebellion if they think they’re on the side of a demigod or some chosen one. Never trust a poet. They —”
Gansey interrupted, “The flag was destroyed, right? Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off.”
“It’s quite all right,” Malory said, and sounded as if it was more than all right. This — plucking threads from the tight weave of history — was their common ground. Gansey was relieved to realize their relationship was still intact, just built upon a very different foundation than his relationship with the people currently in the backseat. As a Honda blew past them, its occupants giving Gansey the finger, the professor continued, “It was indeed thought destroyed. Repurposed, really. Skidmore wrote that it was made into nightgowns for Henry the Fourth, though I couldn’t find his sources.”
“Nightgowns!” repeated Blue. “Why nightgowns?”
Gansey said, “For maximum ignominy.”
“No one knows what ignominy means, Gansey,” Adam muttered.
“Disgrace,” supplied Malory. “Destruction of dignity. Much like airplane travel. But the drapery was, in fact, just rediscovered this past week.”
Gansey swerved. “You’re joking!”
“It’s in terrible shape — textiles don’t preserve nicely, as you well know. And it took them forever to suss out what it was. Now, now, get off at this exit, Gansey, so I can show you this. By curious accident, the drapery was found under a barn in Kirtling. Flooding cut a deep path through the topsoil, which revealed the edge of an older foundation. Meters and meters of dirt were dislodged.”
Adam asked, “All that water didn’t destroy the flag?”
The professor swiveled. “Exactly the question! By a trick of physics, the water didn’t fill the foundation but instead managed to cut a separate course slightly uphill! And in answer to your unasked question, yes! The barn was located on a ley line.”
“That was the very question I was about to ask,” Ronan said.
“Ronan,” Blue said, “don’t be such a shitbag.”
Gansey caught a corner of Adam’s laugh in the rearview mirror as he pulled into a parking spot at a bedraggled gas station. Malory had produced an old digital camera from some place on his person and was now clicking back through the photos on it. “They’re now blaming the flooding on a flash thunderstorm or some such. But people who were there say it was because the walls of the barn were weeping.”
“Weeping!” exclaimed Blue. It was impossible to tell if she was horrified or delighted.
“What do you believe?” Gansey asked.
In response, Malory simply handed him the camera. Gansey looked at the display.
“Oh,” he said.
The photo showed a badly degraded textile painted with three women, each in simple robes from a time well before Glendower. They stood in identical poses, hands lifted on either side of their heads, palms bloody red, heralding the Mab Darogan.
They each wore Blue Sargent’s face.
Impossible.
But no. Nothing was impossible these days. He zoomed the photo larger for a better look. Blue’s wide eyes looked back at him. Stylized, yes, but still, the resemblance was uncanny: her dubious eyebrows, her curious mouth. He pressed a knuckle to his lips as hornets hissed in his ears.
He was suddenly overwhelmed, as he had not been in a long time, with the memory of the voice in his head as his life was saved. You will live because of Glendower. Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live when you should not. He was filled with the need to see Glendower himself, to touch his hand, to kneel before him, to thank him, to be him.
Hands reached from the back; he didn’t know whose they were. He let them take the camera.
Blue murmured something he didn’t catch. Adam whispered, “She looks like you.”
“Which one?”
“All of them.”
“Fuck me,” Ronan said, voicing all of their thoughts.
“The photo is so close,” Gansey said finally. “The quality is excellent.”
“Well, of course,” Malory answered. “Don’t you understand? That is the barn outside my holiday cottage. I was the one who saw the tears. My team found the drapery.”
Gansey struggled to piece this together. “How did you know to look there?”
“That, Gansey, is the thing. I wasn’t looking for anything. I was on a well-deserved holiday. After the summer I had, battling that wretched Simmons neighbor about his beastly sewage issue, I was in desperate need of some time away. I assure you, my presence in Kirtling was a coincidence.”
“Coincidence,” echoed Adam, dubious.
What was this thing, this huge thing? Gansey was alive with anticipation and fear. The enormity of it felt like the black pit in the cave — he could see neither the bottom nor the other side.
“I must say, Gansey,” Malory said brightly. “I am so excited to meet your ley line.”