As Keegan worked himself up, I saw the boat tremble...
“...That little bucket of snots can bite the back of me bollocks, running her cake hole like that to Keegan McDonough.”
Slowly, the battered old tub began to rise...
“She sounds like Arthur Guinness talking. That wee bowsie’s Blarney ain’t worth a bucket of brown trouts, and she can kiss my gooter with all her guff.”
...Now the boat hovered two feet above the sea now, water dripping off the hull and pouring out from the bilge through the hole in her side...
“A tyre biting wagon she is, playing the turf accountant with me? Why, the slawly brasser must be mad as a box of frogs to think she’ll win so much as a handful of shrapnel, betting against the luckiest Leprechaun in all the Emerald Isle.”
As the draining water emptied, Keegan opened his eyes, and grinned with pride. “Ha ha, you unbelieving infidels! Gobsmacked you are, and twice as poor!”
“...and worth every penny,” whispered Brann, winking at Katie and me.
“Ace move, Katie,” I told her, under my breath.
“Oh, wait!” Keegan crowed. “What’s that Keegan? Oh… you have an even better idea, eh?” And, with the boat hovering in the air, he gently directed it toward the beach. “Say what? Oh, put her in drydock, make it easier to fix up that hole. By Golly, I think you’re right again!”
And with all the skill required to handle a giant, floating balloon shaped like a turkey in the Macy’s Parade, he maneuvered the boat over the sand, and softly put it down, so that the hole was completely accessible, and an easy reach for patching. Beaming with pride, he took such pleasure rubbing it in. “What’d I tell ya? Never ever bet against a Leprechaun!”
Right. Unless you want to make him give it everything he’s got...
With the boat on the beach, Brann was inspecting the damage to the hull frowning at the big, jagged hole punched into the side. Keegan was on board, scrounging for whatever tools and materials he could find.
“Looks pretty bad, huh?” I asked Brann.
He turned, and gave me an almost fatherly kiss on the forehead. “Keira, I promise you. We will get you off this island tonight.”
“Or die trying?” I replied.
Katie slugged my arm (the good one, at least). “Just what we need. The power of positive thinking.”
“Sorry,” I said. I tried making a ‘positive thinking’ expression.
“What’s wrong?” asked Katie. “You eat some bad fruit back in the woods there? You look like you’re about to fart me off the island.”
Keegan hopped down with his haul from below deck. Our inventory consisted of a little hack saw that looked perfect for carving pumpkins, some rusty pliers, a hammer with a crack in the handle, a flat head screwdriver, six nails, and a quart sized can of marine glue, which, when the lid was pried off, turned out to be almost empty, and dried as hard as marble.
“We are so fucked.” Katie pronounced.
“Be positive,” I reminded her.
“We are positively fucked.”
Keegan came over, and put a comforting hand on Katie’s shoulder. “Hey there. You never give up. Remember?”
“We don’t even have any wood.”
“Sure we do. Trees all around.”
“You’re going to saw the lumber then, I suppose.”
“I... uhh... listen. Brann will think of something.”
“Right. Brann the Plan,” Katie said with all the excitement of a kid getting socks and underwear for Christmas. “So? Brann? What’s the Plan?”
He looked at Katie for a long beat. “We are totally fucked.”
We weren’t. Because (not to brag or anything) I had a sudden, brilliant inspiration (if I do say so myself).
“Brann,” I said. “Do you think, as a fae creature, that Katie might have a bond with this land?”
“In theory, I suppose. Why?”
“And if you and I worked together, do you think we could set up a ward?”
“Sure. But why? If it comes down to that, we already know it won’t keep the Brothers out.”
“No,” I agreed. “But it might keep the water out.”
It was a great theory. So we got to work, just as we had when we repaired the ward back at Edna’s, only this time we had to start from scratch. The idea was to use a magic ward to seal the hole, and even protect the entire hull, so that nothing – or at least no seawater – could get through. The boat would be impervious to leaks, even if we hit more rocks.
As we stood next to the hole in the boat, I surveyed the surface. Brann explained how to mark out the dimensions for our little repair project, and we used a lipstick Katie had in her pack (yeah, I know) to mark out a network of dots which would define the protected space. There were an awful lot of dots, I thought. I saw Brann strip off his shirt (easily the best part of the trip so far) and touch the same protection rune as when we fixed Edna’s ward. Then he pulled out one of his razor sharp daggers. Oh, goodie. Time for the blood again. I looked at the boat again. In my estimation, it has somehow grown from an average commercial fishing boat, to the size of a destroyer. Brann handed me the knife.
I looked back. That destroyer was gone, but the aircraft carrier that had replaced it looked a whole lot bigger.
“So...” I said to Brann. “This is the part where I cut my palms?”
“It wasn’t so bad. Remember?”
“Sure, yes...” I looked over at the Queen Mary again, and gulped. “But what happens if, say for example, I didn’t get enough blood on each and every little lipstick mark?”
“Keira. Relax. No need to go off brickin’ it.”
“We don’t have any bricks. Which don’t float real well anyway.”
“Sweety, I’m sorry. ‘Brickin’ it’ is just an expression. Don’t be so nervous, is all I’m saying.”
“You know, I think the idea of sealing the whole boat idea may be a little too ambitious. I
