“Hear me out, Margaret Devonshire.”
I laugh when he uses my full name, then place my hand over my lips.
“It is an eight-hour trip. A day to be sure. A journey, but worth it, and such beauty along the way.” He opens the map wider and it flaps over his hand. “We drive from here to Holyhead, then take the car ferry to Dublin. After the boat ride, it’s a three-hour drive to the castle.”
“To the castle . . . ,” I say, like I’m starting to believe.
“Yes, but if we’re to keep to my schedule, we’ll have to go now.” He looks at his watch. “It will be dark early, and we’ll need to get up to the northern tip of Ireland. No worries about food. I have a full picnic basket and a thermos of warm cocoa. I have a blanket in the back seat where George can lie down and—”
“So that means we’ll need to spend the night. Do you intend for us to sleep on the side of some Irish road?” I am clicking through every reason that this adventure is a terrible idea even as a growing and frightening giddiness indicates resistance is futile.
“My aunt Mary lives in Crawfordsburn. Well, honestly, many of my aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins live there, but Aunt Mary is my favorite. She’ll take us in without alerting the family forces, I know it.”
“My parents will never allow it. Not at all. Not for a minute.”
“Are they home? I can talk to them.” He grins. “I’m good with parents.”
“I’m sure you are. I’m sure you’re charming enough to talk anyone into almost anything, but they aren’t home, and besides that, they aren’t easily charmed.”
“I don’t want to charm anyone, Megs. I want to take you and your brother on an adventure for Christmas. I want George to see the place he longs to see. I want to spend today with you.”
I could not have been more stunned if he’d picked me up and swung me around and kissed me again—but this time on my front stoop. A flash of sadness told me that the snowbank kiss was a one-time thing. A mistake at best.
“That is so nice, Padraig, but we just can’t. I just . . . can’t.”
“You wanted adventure . . .”
“I never said that.”
“Okay, then it’s George.” He smiles because he knows that will hook my heart like a fishing line.
“I can’t take him away from home on Christmas Eve . . . Eve.”
“We’ll be back home in time for Christmas Eve, for whatever your family has planned. To my mind, there’s no time like the present.”
“What if we get stuck? What if—”
“What if we don’t go and your brother never has his adventure? Actually, your parents not being home might be just the thing. We’ll leave a note. We’ll be safe. I promise.”
We’ll be safe. I promise.
I believe him. I believe the deep echo in his voice. The sky clear and bright, I think of George in front of the fireplace asking for only this for Christmas. I think of next Christmas when George likely won’t be here, and me wishing I’d taken the chance, broken through the stone wall of logic and fear. There is a courageous girl I want to be—not this girl I am at the moment.
I look into Padraig’s green eyes and I believe him.
We will be safe.
“Wait here,” I say.
I rush inside, running toward an adventure. Before I fully know what I’ve done, I write Mum and Dad a note.
Please forgive me in advance. I am taking George on a short overnight trip. I promise he will be safe and warm.
My heart is hammering with delight. Something is coming alive in me, racing toward the unknown. It’s an untested feeling I indulge, a surge toward adventure.
This is dangerous and wrong.
It is safe and right.
Everything is all mixed tighter.
I am taking him to Ireland to see the castle. We are with Padraig Cavender from university. His father is a mathematics professor at Reading, and Padraig has an aunt at Crawfordsburn. We will stay at her house. All will be well. I am sorry to take him without permission, but this is all he has asked of me for Christmas.
I love you.
Yours, Megs
Within minutes, a perfectly thrilled George with a self-satisfied smile is bundled into the back of the Wyvern on a bench seat of leather with blankets and pillows piled all around him.
I’ve brushed my hair and donned my favorite thick gray lamb’s-wool sweater, grabbed a hunk of cheese and a loaf of bread. I bring George’s sketchbook and his pouch overflowing with colored pencils. Padraig has a big wicker basket on the floor of the back seat. The car radio is playing “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” and George’s cheeks are aflame with adventure.
Padraig starts the car and then turns around to George. “It is lovely to meet you, George. If you look on the floor back there, you’ll find I’ve brought something for you.”
I sit in the front of the car, knowing I have about one minute to change my mind, but then George lets out a holler of glee that I haven’t heard in ages and I know I won’t. I turn in my seat to see that George has pulled from the floor a huge world atlas. He opens it as Padraig presses the gas.
We are off on the London Road of Worcester, heading toward Holyhead, then through Birmingham. It’s all too wonderful to believe.
“George,” says Padraig, “I think you are very, very brave.”
George nods solemnly and says in a very big voice, “Yes, but Peter didn’t feel brave when he stabbed the wolf chasing Lucy; he felt sick with fear, but he did it anyway.”
Padraig and I look to each other and smile; he reaches over with his free hand and pats my leg just as Bing Crosby’s voice sings from the car radio, filling the cab with the music and words of “Jolly Old St. Nicholas.”
Padraig joins Bing, singing in a tenor voice that gives me a thrill of happiness. “Lean your ear this way.”
George joins in. “Don’t you tell a single soul what I’m going to say.”
Without breaking the stride of the song, I sing off-key, “Christmas Eve is coming soon; Now you dear old man . . .”
The three of us join in laughter.
Padraig sings the entire song, tapping the steering wheel, knowing every word. His voice is beautiful with the lilt of his Irish accent, but also with something I hadn’t known: his singing voice is as melodious as Bing’s. My voice, meanwhile, is as out of tune as an abandoned piano, but I care little for how I sound. I am singing with Padraig and George, and we are with St. Nick.
Watching the English countryside fly by the windows of Padraig’s car, I am as nervous as I am excited. Every mud-splattered sheep, every black cow, every thatched-roof house and smoking chimney are brilliantly vivid in the snowy countryside.
George naps and I put my feet on the dashboard, something Dad never lets me do. We laugh, and the feeling is like growing wings. Within a few hours, we arrive at the ferry port, where we see the monstrous metal ship that will carry us across the Irish Sea with Padraig’s father’s Wyvern inside.
Once the car is in the ferry and we’re riding the waves, Padraig and I get out of the vehicle and walk to the metal railing. We feel the wild wind that makes it too difficult to talk. George naps in the back seat. It’s so cold I can’t feel my fingers. Mum will be frantic with worry, and I can only hope my note will soothe her somewhat.