Salty Dog

by Shayne Silvers

My mother’s ghost straightened. “Your mother birthed you alone. But even though you know us as separate entities, we three are one. We kept ourselves apart only because to do otherwise would mean stepping away from the world entirely, as many of the most powerful gods have been forced to do. And because we have, clearly,” she said, glancing over my shoulder at what lay beyond the window, “different tastes.”

  “But what about the others,” I began, thinking of those gods I knew were still around, “did they—”

  “Some of the Old Ones,” she interjected, “felt the need to stick around, that’s all. Come.” She dragged me away from the window, which closed slowly, allowing the briefest glimpse of a brawl the likes of which I’d rarely seen; Badb was riding piggyback on the beefy man’s shoulders, punching him in the head over and over as she cackled, lashing out with her feet whenever one of the other patrons wandered close enough, her steel toe boots occasionally knocking out teeth.

  The window shut, cutting her laughter off abruptly.

  “Does she do that a lot?” I asked.

  “It keeps her busy,” my mother’s ghost replied, as if that were answer enough. She stopped a moment later before another window, this one made not of obsidian, but veined marble. She lowered the lever more judiciously this time, the window spreading wide slowly to reveal a hallway in a hospital. Like the bar, I recognized the surroundings immediately; hospitals were too bland, too sanitized to be anything else. Signs hung from the ceiling overhead, tiny overturned triangles indicating the various wings, and elevators at the end of the hall hummed with use. As I watched, a woman’s back came into view, her blonde hair piled high on her head, navy blue scrubs obscuring what I assumed would be a remarkably lithe and attractive body, judging by the muscles displayed in her arms as she pushed a man in a wheelchair, his head lolling about as if he’d forgotten what his neck was there for. She walked to the elevator, turned him sideways to wait, and reached out to flick the button.

  “Macha,” I said, recognizing the woman’s face the instant I caught her profile. Aunt number two and, therefore, the second part of my mother’s triumvirate. But my mother’s ghost was silent as Macha leaned in, brushing her cheek against the man’s salt-n-pepper stubble, to whisper something in his ear. The man’s head shot up so suddenly it was like she’d woken him from a deep sleep. He craned his neck to stare at the would-be nurse, mouth gaping. She smiled, patted his shoulder, and the two returned to studying the elevator as though nothing had happened—there was an intelligence, a determination—in the man’s eyes that hadn’t been there before.

  “This time it’ll stick,” my mother’s ghost said, bobbing her head.

  “What will?”

  “That man’s been using his whole adult life. Overdosed twice before. This was the third time and should have killed him. And yet, after today, he’ll recover. He’ll even stay clean. It’ll be hard, but with her blessing, not impossible.” She raised the lever, letting the window snap shut.

  “So that makes Macha…what? The ghost of Christmas presents?”

  The woman stared blankly at me.

  “Nevermind,” I said, coughing into my hand. “What I meant was, what’s her aspect? If Badb is war and strife, that is.”

  “Life. Nature. Motherhood.” My mother’s ghost waved a hand. “The three are intertwined more often than not. Besides, Macha doesn’t distinguish between the three. She likes to wander, helping mortals as a nurse or midwife or gardener or what have you. She channels wellness and recovery the way Badb channels battle lust. She is the air that fills mortal lungs, giving them hope.”

  Sounded like Ceara, I thought, acknowledging the similarities between my aunt’s nature and that piece of myself. The piece who had embraced the Curaitl and made her home among them. The piece who genuinely cared for people—even those I’d resolved to hate.

  I found my mother’s ghost nodding in agreement and frowned. “And what about ye?” I asked, realizing she’d shown me her two sisters to prove a point, or at least clue me in to…I wasn’t sure what. Something. “Which part of the Morrigan are ye?”

  “That depends on who you ask,” my mother’s ghost replied, looking away, her eyes reduced to hot cinders. “In the past, mortals came to us asking for different things they needed. Strength in battle,” she gestured to Badb’s obsidian window, “or the health of their child.” This time to Macha’s. “But there was one power the boldest, or perhaps the most foolish, sought from us. They pleaded, begged us to read their futures. To predict what might happen.”

  I frowned, realizing the woman was talking about fortune telling. No, not fortune telling—reading the future, she’d said. Prophecy. “I don’t understand,” I admitted.

  “If Macha represents life, and Badb represents war, then your mother represented foresight. The ability to see into the possible futures and their various outcomes.”

  I shook my head. “But I didn’t inherit any of that,” I said, brow furrowed.

  “Ah, but you have. You’ll remember them as dreams, perhaps. Flashes. Whatever allowed you to come here in the first place.”

  I thought back and realized that was true; I had ended up in the Hall of Lives thanks to a bout of awful dreams that wouldn’t go away—a series of restless nights I’d survived only by getting blackout drunk. I’d almost forgotten, given how much had happened since. “But,” I held up a hand, “and no offense meant or anythin’, but isn’t that a bit…lame?”

  “Lame?”

  “Aye. I mean Badb is, ye know, the tempest or whatever. And Macha’s aspect is life and air and all that. And I know you’re sayin’ me ma could read the future, but could she actually do anythin’?”

  Her lips pursed. “I think you underestimate the power of prophecy.” My mother’s ghost held her arms wide. “Pick a window.”

  I sighed, suspecting the whole “no offense” approach had completely backfired on me, and eyed the windows. Two stood out, the first rimmed in a glittering, shimmering quartz, its edges dripping liquid gold. The second seemed bland by comparison, but ornate, the cherry wood decorated with some sort of crest. “Those two,” I said, pointing.

  My mother’s ghost followed the trajectory of my finger and raised her brows in surprise, then grunted. “Yes, I suppose you would have chosen those. Come.”

  I followed her to the first window, wondering what this was all about while also wishing I’d kept my trap shut; it wasn’t like I was trying to be dismissive of my mother’s abilities, they just seemed to pale next to those of a war goddess who could decimate her enemies at will and a nature goddess capable of literally breathing new life into the sick or fallen.

  My mother’s ghost hesitated at the window, palm hovering over the opaque glass until—at last—she grasped the lever and pulled. I blinked, surprised to find the Fae realm on the other side. The difference was easy to spot: where else would you find mushrooms as big as trees, their stalks the color of peaches, their caps glowing beneath a moonlit sky? And those unfamiliar stars, forming alien constellations—a night sky streaming with tendrils of multi-colored light that never decorated our own. It was stunning. Breathtaking.

  Until one of those stars exploded.

  The sound of the gunshot made me flinch and duck out of habit before I realized it had come from the Fae side of the window. I glanced back to find that the star, meanwhile, had shattered into a million pieces of broken light, hanging about in the sky like leftover confetti, a firework trapped in a never-ending explosion. I quickly studied the landscape for the source of the shot only to find a man sprawled out on a luminescent mushroom cap, drawing back a massive silver-plated handgun to blow smoke off the barrel, eyeing his handiwork. I squinted, then felt my eyes widen in recognition.

  Nate Temple.

  And yet…there was something different about him. As I watched, he held out his hand, crooking his fingers just so—as if he might reach out and touch the shattered star. It reminded me of the way I used to pinch the moon as a child, perspective making t
he impossible possible. Except what happened next was decidedly not a trick of perspective. As I stood there gaping, Nate Temple began reassembling the star, idly probing and tweaking until each bursting bit of light returned to its usual place in the sky, like he was putting a puzzle back together.

  “The Manling born in Fae,” my mother’s ghost intoned. “Seems he’s embraced his wild side, his past self.” She glanced at me and smirked. “In a way, he’s further along than you are.”

  I scowled at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means we need to hurry.” She shut the window, but not before I glimpsed a small huddle of others joining Nate—a gargantuan wolf-man and a black, winged alicorn I thought I recognized, trailed by a spear-wielding catman, a little girl, and a…very, very handsome young man.

  “Who—” I began.

  “Stay away from him,” my mother’s ghost called back, not bothering to turn around. “Best to avoid the Pendragons, as a rule.”

  “Wait, that was—”

  “Hush, there’s no time for that.” She gestured to the second window, which she’d already opened, but held up a hand before I could peer through. “You wanted to know how our power compares to those of our sisters? Before you look through this, let me ask you something. Imagine you come to me, begging to know if you’ll find love.”

  I opened my mouth to reject that ridiculous hypothesis, but the weight of her glare stopped me cold. I shrugged. “Fine, whatever ye say.”

  “Now,” she continued, “let’s say I tell you that you’ll have three great loves in your life. That one will die, that one you will kill, and that the other will leave you.”

  “Morbid,” I noted. “But sure.”

  “Tell me, what would happen?”

  I sighed, not the least bit interested in this hypothetical scenario, but decided to give it some actual thought since it seemed so important. I considered her prophecy, my frown deepening the longer I did so. “Nothin’ good,” I answered, at last.

  She nodded. “And why not?”

  “Because I’d be worried the whole time. Afraid to fall for anyone. Would they die on me? Leave me? Why would I have to kill ‘em?”

  “Precisely. Now, let’s say you probed me for more information. I go on to tell you that your first love would die in battle. That your second would leave because he never felt he could compare to the first. And that the third would ask you to help him pass late into the course of your lives.”

  “Why not just say that, then, in the first place?” I asked, baffled by this turn in conversation.

  “Ah, but the consequences.” She raised a finger in warning. “What if she tried to stop the first love from ever going off to battle? Eventually, he resents her and leaves. The second is bitter about never being enough and beat you until one day you strike back, ending your days behind bars. The third love dies alone, never having met the woman he would have spent most of his life with. The prophecy remains fulfilled, but you end up miserable and broken.”

  “Are ye always this optimistic?” I asked, dryly.

  “My point is that fate can be a weapon. It can also be a shield. Knowing one’s future can mean salvation, or damnation, depending on the path we take.” And, with that very cryptic comment, she waved me forward to look through the window.

  I frowned, but did as she asked, stepping forward to see the central aisle of a magnificent private library, the lights dimmed, but bright enough to reveal four shadowy figures standing around a pedestal that contained what appeared to be a book.

  “So it’s true,” one of the two men present muttered, barely audible from this distance. “The Catalyst…all of it.”

  I jerked away from the sound of that voice, recognizing it from a memory I’d seen here before. “Is that—”

  “Your father, Merlin, yes. But pay attention.”

  I turned back to the window and saw that the two couples had stepped away from the pedestal, and that the book was gone. The man who’d spoken, my father, faced away from the others, shoulders bunched, face lost entirely to the shadows.

  “Is there a reason ye called us here?” one woman asked, her voice ringing out as if she’d never been shushed by a librarian in her life. My mother, in the flesh, standing not five feet from Merlin. I hugged myself to see my parents together—something I’d never hoped to do in my lifetime.

  The other woman present turned to her companion. “Calvin, maybe you should show them.”

  The man beside her nodded and held out something—an hourglass, maybe? Either way, my parents’ reactions were immediate; they each glared hatefully at the other, pointing accusingly.

  “I knew this was a trick,” Merlin hissed.

  “The next time me sisters and I find ye, wizard, we’ll kill ye,” my mother retorted.

  “This isn’t a trick,” the other man, Calvin, insisted, stepping between the two. “It’s an offer. A…chance. Perhaps the only chance any of us has.”

  The unnamed woman ran a hand over her belly self-consciously. “We know what we’re asking will be difficult. That you may not understand it all, but the Catalyst needs a protector. Someone powerful enough to do what must be done should the time come.”

  My parents turned to the woman, though it was clear by their posture both were fixated on her slight paunch of a belly. “Is it true?” Merlin asked, voice laced with trepidation, but also the faintest degree of…hope.

  “What is it ye wish of us?” my mother asked.

  “Makayla,” Calvin said, turning to the woman, “why don’t you explain it?”

  Makayla smiled. “Well, that’s the tricky part…”

  My mother’s ghost shut the window so abruptly I actually stumbled back in surprise. “That’s enough,” she said.

  I glared at her. “What the hell d’ye mean ‘that’s enough’?!” I demanded. “What were they goin’ to ask of me parents? And who were those two, anyway?”

  “Calvin and Makayla Temple.” She shook her head mournfully. “Your mother never trusted them, not entirely, but she saw the necessity in what they were doing. In what they asked of her and the wizard.”

  I blinked a half dozen times, trying to process those names. Calvin and Makayla Temple. “But why…” I trailed off, bewildered.

  “They asked your mother and father to provide them with a protector,” my mother’s ghost supplied. “For their son. Nathin Laurent Temple.”

  “A…what? Wait, me?!” I jabbed a finger into my own chest, too incredulous to do more than stammer.

  “That was your intended purpose, yes.” My mother’s ghost gave me a sad smile. “And now you know how powerful the gift of foresight is. What will you do with the knowledge you’ve just been given, I wonder?” She looked away, staring at the crest emblazoned on the window frame. “Will this knowledge destroy you? Define you? I suppose only time will tell.”

  I shook my head, and finally slumped to the floor, clutching my knees to my chest. Nate Temple’s protector? I couldn’t imagine how that was even possible, let alone what it meant. I mean sure, I knew the guy, tangentially—as a friend-of-a-friend—but I’d only met him twice. Once when he’d hijacked my Uber so he could make it to his date on time, and the second when he’d broken into my apartment on a whim and subsequently trashed it. Frankly, the guy had always behaved like a class A jerk around me…and yet he had a ton of very loyal friends whose opinions I valued. Still, that hadn’t stopped me from agreeing to confront the bastard on behalf of the Winter Queen—one of the three Fae powerhouses who ruled that realm.

  A confrontation I’d yet to have.

  “But that would mean…” I drifted off, my emotions in turmoil.

  “I have one last thing to show you,” my mother’s ghost said, drawing me laboriously to my feet.

  “I don’t t’ink I can handle any more surprises,” I admitted.

  “Just trust me.”

  I almost scoffed but held it back; it wasn’t this creature’s fault I’d chosen to look at that window,
to witness that particular exchange. In fact, I was fairly certain some part of me had wanted to know the truth, to know what had brought my parents together. But to find out it had been nothing but obligation, that I had been engineered…

  Another thought occurred to me, this one so dark I almost didn’t voice it for fear of what the answer would be. “Did they love me? Me parents?” I asked, staring down at the celestial bodies beneath our feet as we shuffled down the hallway, my steps leaden.

  “Until the day she gave birth to you,” she replied, thoughtfully, “that was the one thing your mother distrusted most about the Temple duo.”

  I looked up in confusion. “Wait, what?”

  My mother’s ghost was studying the stars above absentmindedly. “How could they know, do you think, that the time-bending wizard and the prophetic goddess would fall in love—as much as they were capable—and truly cherish the child they would never meet?” She shook her head. “At times, I wonder still if the Temple’s were gods themselves, or at least blessed with a vision of the future that was far clearer than even your mother’s had been.”

  She tugged me along, and I fell back into my own thoughts, but I could feel a slight smile creeping across my face as I realized what she’d told me just now: my parents had loved each other, and I hadn’t been solely a means to an end, solely the Catalyst’s protector.

  Whatever the hell that meant.

  42

  The final window my mother’s ghost led me to seemed to be made of black ice, its corners licked by frost. She merely stood beside it this time, however, watching me, waiting. But for what I wasn’t sure. “Are ye goin’ to open it?” I asked, gesturing to the window.

  “No. This one belongs to you.”

  I frowned at her choice of words, but eventually reached for the lever, drawing it down as I’d seen her do a handful of times already. The window swung open with a bang as if drawn inward, and a sudden blast of frigid air hit me, causing the flesh on my arms to pebble up. I rubbed at my exposed skin, surprised to find my breath fogging up. Beyond the frame lay darkness—an unlit, windowless room, perhaps. Maybe a meat locker, I thought, given the cold? That, or somewhere below the surface of the earth, like a cave in the mountains or a military bunker.