by Renée Jaggér
I didn’t come here for a history lesson, I thought, but I did have to admit that what Gran was telling me was intriguing. But what did I know of war? More, what did I want to know of it? Was there any way I could get out of this, interesting as she made it sound? I had an important job already.
“Over seven hundred thousand people died during the battle,” Gran continued. Her tone was matter-of-fact, but her eyes projected the gravity of the memory. How the hell did I have a dream about something someone else experienced? And why was I a crow? My questions were beginning to make my head spin.
“You were there.” I did not pose it as a question, but Gran nodded anyway.
She lifted her chin, eyes alight with something like power. “I was Mary Anne Ghen, but I was also the Morrigan. I wasn’t in my home country, but I was close enough. Even today, the skeletons of lost soldiers resurface and are placed in the towering bone piles in the basement of the Ossuaire de Douaumont.”
My bones chilled. I glanced at the window and the front door, but both were shut. I could feel the wind from my dream faintly anyway. I suppressed a shudder, as I had in the forest when I had seen the wolf dash away. What was going on? Perhaps there was more than a yoga-esque, “Connect with your inner goddess retreat” going on here. Why had Mum and Gran lied to me?
Gran shook her head. “I can hardly believe the world has grown worse since then. When the Second Great War started, I felt like I was being held back. Chained up. We might be on the brink of something far worse now. I can feel it in my bones. The old power is stirring, preparing to be unleashed.”
I leaned forward and took Gran’s wrinkled hands in my own. “Last night, you told me you couldn’t take it anymore. What did you mean? And where do I fit in?”
Gran nodded, her eyes sad, but she ignored my last question. “The Sundering,” she answered as if the word tasted bitter. “I’d had to assume all three parts long before, but then I split myself apart, giving my power to two other women in our family. I had been the Morrigan on my own for too long and was losing focus. Without focus, my strength began to fail.”
Even though I didn’t know a thing about magic power and goddesses shifting into the bodies of birds, I did know what losing focus and strength felt like. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. Why did you have all three parts to begin with? Did someone else die, and you had to take them on? How does it work?”
Gran gave me a sad smile and patted my hand. “I will tell you some other time. I turned out all right. It’s that fiery spirit we share.” I hated to admit it, but perhaps we did have more similarities than I’d thought.
“What did you do during the Second War?” I asked.
At this, Gran laughed and rose from the table. She disappeared into a back room and reemerged a moment later with a small wooden trunk in hand. She blew the dust off the top before unlatching it and withdrawing faded photographs and pieces of what looked like parchment. “I was a spy and a provocateur. I used what power remained to Shift. I became invisible or commonplace as I watched and listened. I wasn’t done working yet, Sundered though I was.”
My fingertips brushed the photographs as I separated them. Dates were written on the backs. One said 1939, which I knew to be the year the war had begun. The photograph showed Gran standing next to a car in a jumpsuit. She was smiling, and there was a fierce look in her eyes. She seemed to be in her late twenties or early thirties.
Young for having fought in a war twenty years before.
Gran came to my side. “Once I was no longer the Morrigan, age began to settle upon me quite quickly. This was in 1939, and this one,” she withdrew another photograph, “was in 1941.”
I chuckled. “You looked five years older, Gran. How old were you?”
Gran laughed. “That you don’t need to know. I seemed to age five to ten years every year.” She grinned as she looked through more photos, and I noted that she looked lively and beautiful in all of them despite her increasing age.
She had so much life. I was twenty-nine, and I felt like I no longer had the vigor I saw in her eyes. Godsdamned pandemic.
“I had the Way of Kings about me,” she said in a proud tone.
I frowned. What the hell did that mean?
I was just about to ask when she showed me another photo. It was from 1944 and showed Gran standing beside a man who appeared to be in his late thirties. “We were in love, if only for a night.” She wore a sad smile. “The war was raging, and I did not want to hope. He would want a family, and since I could not have children, I had to sever the relationship.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied, feeling Gran’s pain. Who’d decided being the Morrigan meant sacrificing a normal life? I paused. Why was I thinking about the Morrigan as if she was real?
Gran nodded. “Do you believe me now?”
I leaned back, feeling the full weight of all that had been thrust upon me since last night. I didn’t know what the hell to believe. I spoke in a patient tone like I was talking to an injured person on the job rather than a member of my family. “I have so many questions.”
Gran laid a comforting hand on my shoulder. “I understand, my dear. Perhaps I should have told you sooner.”
Yeah, that would have been nice, I thought with no small amount of indignation. There’s nothing like dumping the destiny of a goddess on your niece during a pandemic.
Gran sat down once more with an earnest expression. “You are easy to trust and talk to, do you know that?”
I scoffed and crossed my arms. I had been told that before, mainly by my mother, but she could talk to anyone with ease. A slew of boyfriends who had found me an easy target but not worthy of commitment had said the same. Friends had also expressed that to me, but they never stuck around. Somehow, I found ways to be alone. “I-I don’t know about that, Gran.”
“You are. I was told the same. I knew that about myself. Sure, some consider me eccentric, but you and I...we have a way of drawing people in. It is the way of the Morrigan. We are able to bend people to our will unwittingly. It is a great and grave power that we must wield carefully.”
My lips parted to object. My head felt heavy. I needed more coffee. Perhaps the mental fog I felt, the disbelief, would clear with a judicious application of caffeine. The coffee I did have, however, was cold since I had forgotten about it.
“We are the kind of people who are looked up to,” Gran continued. "If what happened across Europe during both wars taught the world anything, it was never to underestimate someone who can motivate people. Humans have known that from time to time, but like most things, we keep forgetting."
I nodded, remembering from school that even the most sinister of leaders enraptured their followers. Adolf Hitler had been more than charismatic. His people had been devoted to him.
I glanced down into my coffee mug, and I saw grounds floating to the top. A sense of warm certainty flooded through me, as if...
Gran was telling the truth.
The First Morrigan
The Sundering began quietly.
The soft light of dawn touched her cheeks, and she smiled with relief.
Peace, she thought. That’s what I feel.
Peace was normally the last thing the goddess of war felt. From battle to battle she had gone, her destiny to see each war to its end, never resting.
I’m tired, she had confessed. Please, she had begged. Let it be someone else.
The gods had told her she would not receive their help, not when she had gone to war against their desires. While they had stirred strife among the humans, she had sought to end it. That meant allowing the war to go on. Directing it. Pulling the strings. Setting the course. Sometimes it meant taking a sword in her own two hands and striking a human down.
Kings had fallen beneath her sword. Chaos and confusion were two words they attributed to her, but now, she only wanted peace.
Please, she had begged the gods. Take this away.
Both the gods and the humans saw confusion and chaos. She saw
power and wisdom and strength. The sun, the moon, and the stars, she thought tearfully. Only the heavenly bodies had seemed to be on her side. As the sun began its slow ascent above the edge of this earth she roamed, she felt it was time. The severing. The reckoning. The Sundering.
She closed her eyes and let the light in.
They finally agreed. At first, it had felt like nothing, then, like the sharpest sword cutting through a branch, she was torn in two. Her heart was cleaved, her soul with it. Her mind felt like a temple curtain split by a bolt of lightning. Her blood revolted, veins churning with what felt like lava. Her body convulsed, and a scream like nothing she had ever heard in her life was wrenched out of her.
The ground beneath her split as her anguish filled the vale. Mountains crumbled, rivers paused, and the stars hid while her power diminished. When it was finished, she felt nothing. She sank to the ground, and rain began to fall. It was torrential and cold, pelting her like stones from the sky, but she did not feel it. Her body felt nothing but absence. Nothing but emptiness.
At last, they came. From far away, they looked like three haggard soldiers stumbling away from the end of a battle, but as they neared, she saw they were women, and a wolf followed at their heels.
The three women approached her across the plain, seemingly untouched by the downpour. Each wore a crown: the first had the emblem of the sun, the second a crescent moon, and the third, three stars in an arched row.
She managed to give them a weak smile. Thank you, she wanted to say to them, to the gods, and to the humans, but mostly to herself for being able to do it. She did not need to voice it. The three women nodded at her in turn.
“We have taken up your sword,” the woman with the sun crown said. She smiled and the rain began to fade, the golden light of day striking the earth. “We will not fail you.”
Chapter Five
“No, I will storm the heavens.
Not any king, only I.
Not any seer, only I.
Not any conqueror, only I.”
—The Ancient Book of Morrigan, Passage XXII
I needed to clear my head. It was not a hard decision to make. Right now, I couldn’t wait to get out of there. After assisting Gran in cleaning up breakfast, I found my way out of the cottage to a narrow path leading from the back of the goat pen into the dense forest beyond.
The trees closed in around me, and I tried not to think about the forest I had driven through the day before. The path was quite overgrown since very few trod it. The wind was calm, unlike the wild force it had been in my dream. The sky was just beginning to clear.
I imagined how much worse it would be in my flat with only the window open. At least out here, I had room to roam. Damn, I had missed this.
I strode along the path for some time as it wound through the forest. At one point, a fallen tree obstructed it, and as I approached it, the black bird sitting on it cawed and flew away. A crow, I realized. Of course. I couldn’t escape them. Moments later, I rounded a bend and heard the faint trickle of a stream. I followed the sound until it came into view. The water sparkled in the sunlight and looked perfect for swimming.
Wings flapping overhead caused my attention to drift to the boughs of a tree leaning over the stream. Two crows had flitted away. I frowned and sighed. They were every godsdamned place I went.
I picked my way down to the stream and followed it for some time. My muscles began to ache, and my breathing became labored. I should have had more coffee before coming out here.
“Don’t go too far,” Gran had advised me.
I wasn’t as concerned with how far I would go as with how long I would be gone. I needed a break from my break from real life. I wished I hadn’t woken up to history lessons and being told about magic and goddesses. I had to admit, though, what she had told me so far had intrigued me. I wanted to know more, but then, I didn’t. I was still so tired.
I continued along the stream, and the trees thinned until a new landscape sprawled before me. I felt like I had stepped into a painting. The walls of a valley rose around me. The clouds had drifted close together but sunlight still filtered through.
I stood by a tree that soared high, branches sprawling. It looks like a good climbing tree, I thought, then spoke in surprise. “You have to be joking.” A crow landed in the branches and was joined a second later by two others. All three pairs of beady eyes fixed on me.
I stared back. “Are you following me?” I asked in a dry tone. I had been annoyed when there was only one. Now there were three.
One of the crows tilted its head before looking at the others and flapping away. The other two cawed one after another and followed the first. I shook my head. They reminded me of the pesky bird who liked to peck on my flat’s window. With my luck, it would still be there when I returned. I had once made the mistake of feeding it. “Must have told its friends,” I muttered.
I started into the valley, hoping to see as much of it as I could before the sun began setting and I had to return. I came here to rest. This is me resting.
I found myself climbing a hill upon which grew a clump of trees. As I approached its peak, I heard rustling from the brush and halted. If it was another damned crow… Something stepped out from behind a tree.
The creature was enormous and had a bristling black coat. A wolf, I realized as my heart began to hammer. It was the largest wolf I had ever seen. It loomed above me, about half the height of the tree it had stepped in front of. The creature fixed me with an ice-blue stare, its maw opening to reveal a set of dripping fangs.
The wolf stepped closer but did not hunker down to spring. I had the sense that it meant to attack but was examining me first. Why? Just eat me already. My initial instinct was to run, but I realized my folly. It would just bound after me and tear me to shreds. I refused to panic.
The creature took another step closer, and a low sound reverberated from its stomach. It wasn’t a growl, but it was a clear threat.
To my surprise, anger welled up within me instead of fear. “You know, I was enjoying a nice walk before you interrupted,” I told the wolf. I stood straighter with my hands on my hips. “And where’s your pack?” It was broad daylight; I had always imagined an encounter with one would happen under the sacred light of the moon, and not with a single animal, but with an entire pack.
Wait, what? I thought. I’ve never imagined any scenario of the sort.
The wolf answered me by coming toward me, sniffing me, and opening its mouth farther. Its tongue appeared and swiped across its teeth.
Indignation swirled up within me. How rude. My veins blazed, my heart hammered, and a sound I had never before uttered surged up through my chest, through my throat, and out of my mouth. I growled at the wolf.
The creature paused, mouth closing, ears falling back. Its tail stilled. However, it was taken aback for only a moment. Its bristling fur rose higher, body braced for a leap.
No, I thought. Don’t you dare! The sound welled up within me again, joined by my erratically pumping heart. The growl that fell from my lips was utterly feral, almost inhuman. What the hell was I doing?
The wolf stilled, and its ears flattened against its head. With a small whine, it turned and bounded back into the trees.
I straightened, panting. Sweat glided down the back of my neck and gathered in my palms. The adrenaline in my body made me feel numb. What the hell had just happened? What had I just done? I walked back down the hill, glad I didn’t see any crows or wolves on the way back. The growl had been more effective than I expected. Or maybe it had been the conversation. Who knew?
I glanced to the west and found the sky blushing a deep pink. Time had passed more quickly than I had realized. Soon it would be dark, and I didn’t want to encounter the wolf again without the light of the sun. Besides, Gran would be wondering where I was.
And maybe dinner was ready? A growl came out of me again, but this time it was not a threat.
I didn’t know how the hell to answer Gran when she aske
d how my hike had gone.
“I found a stream and the valley,” I told her at last. Gran took one look at me and my haggard appearance and knew there had been more to it.
“Ah, yes, the vale,” Gran replied. “One of my favorite places. It isn’t too far from here and provides some alone-time.”
You live alone, I thought. Unless you need time away from your goats. I distracted myself with a second cup of coffee and surveyed what Gran had made for dinner. She’d offered me tea, which I’d declined in favor of the glorious bean.
I hoped Gran wouldn’t wish to discuss my dreams or hiking experiences during dinner, and to my relief, she only commented on how much milk the goats had given her and how many weeds she had pulled from the garden during the day.
“Thank you for supper,” I said when we had finished. I helped clean up, and she decided she wanted to go to bed early. Well, so much for finding out more tonight. I really didn’t want any more food for thought tonight, though, given my dream the night before after our initial conversation. The wolf would keep me busy enough, and I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.
“Maybe we can do something fun tomorrow, Gran,” I suggested as a way of apologizing for being gone all day and silent during supper.
Gran gave me a reassuring smile. “Rest, my dear. Tomorrow is another day.”
I bounded adjacent to the river. The current carried chunks of ice as rapidly as I ran, all four paws landing on torn rubble as I leaped over the remains of a wall that had just come crashing down.
My fur was wet as I raced against the biting wind. The sky was overcast, and snow was still falling in gentle flakes. The jagged debris of what had once been a street caused me difficulty in getting through.