by Renée Jaggér
“Ah, our neighbor across the channel.” Gran smiled. “I haven’t been to France since the war.”
I remembered how long Gran had been in this cottage. With that thought, my dream came rushing back. “I-I had another dream, but this one...well, I don’t know about this one.”
Gran was preparing a cup of tea. I didn’t see any gin nearby. “Oh, a dream? What did you see?” She spoke nonchalantly, as if I hadn’t been having dreams about her memories for the past few nights. Had she somehow forgotten? Maybe I wouldn’t have to become the Morrigan. Happy thought.
I tried to describe what had transpired, although the first part of my dream was now blurred and muddled. I was able to describe the laugh that had shaken the street and what had happened to the building, though. My insides tightened as I explained.
Gran sat listening, her brows drawing closer together as the dream unfolded in my words. Her fingertips tapped the side of her teacup as she listened. When I finished, I released a deep sigh as though I were ridding my body of every feeling my dream had brought me.
“So,” I asked, “where does this one come from? Was this from you again? Where were you?”
She frowned, seeming to be considering what she had been told. When Gran spoke at last, her tone was grave. “It wasn’t one of my memories, dear. It must be a vision of what is to come.” She gave me a weak smile. “Don’t worry. I had those often. They can be helpful, though I do understand why it might frighten you.”
My eyes widened, and my grip on the coffee mug tightened. “You mean, I’ll have to experience that in real life?”
Gran hesitated, then nodded. She reached out to hold my hand. “The visions don’t always end up happening exactly as you saw them. Sometimes one part of your vision happens at one time and another part at another time. Some parts are merely symbolic. They all work together, but...” Her voice trailed off as if she were not quite sure how to finish.
“But what?” I prodded in a pleading tone.
“Without the Way of Seers, I cannot know for certain,” Gran finished. “It is with the Way of Seers that prophecies can be explained.”
The Way of Kings, and now the Way of Seers? This was too much. What did it all mean? I felt a headache coming on.
Gran seemed to know I had a question. “The Way of Kings has to do with the Morrigan’s power, and the Way of Seers has to do with Her wisdom. The third segment—the Way of Conquerors—has to do with Her strength. With all three, She is complete, and although one body is capable of attaining all three it is better dispersed between three persons,” Gran explained. “You have the Way of Kings about you, that is, people are drawn to your leadership.”
I scoffed. “I’ve never been much of a leader. And how did you get all three parts if they’re normally given to separate people?”
Gran gave me a comforting look and squeezed my hands. Once again, she ignored the burning question I had asked and answered the easy one. She was really good at that. I wondered if it was age or inclination. “Perhaps you’ve never been given the right opportunity.”
A feeling of dread curled up within me. Hesitantly, I asked, “Do...do you think those people in my dream, the children, are...are going to die?”
She looked at me for a long time before nodding. “I do.”
I swallowed hard. Suddenly, I felt like throwing up. I remembered the faces of the children in my dream and the faces of hundreds of children I had met before. In Haiti, the schools, streets, clinics, and hospitals were filled with children. Children with eyes too wide in their small faces. Children whose ribs one could easily count. Children with missing limbs. I remembered the brown water they drank and the grub-filled food they ate and the sagging houses they lived in.
I knew what I had to do. Dread curdled my stomach. My coffee didn’t sound good to me anymore.
“I have to save them.” My tone was resolute.
Gran nodded. “You will do it best as the Morrigan.”
I drew in a deep breath. A couple of days ago, I had arrived here to breathe the fresh country air, eat good food, and take plenty of rejuvenating walks. I had received all of that thus far, but also unsettling dreams and a destiny I didn’t quite understand yet. “What must I do?”
Gran looked bereaved, which surprised me. I felt a twinge of annoyance. She’d wanted me to come so she could pass this on to me. She should be elated that I was willing to hear more.
She looked at our clasped hands. “Becoming the Morrigan means great risk and sacrifice. It means the attention of creatures such as what you saw in your dream...and worse. The Germans were the least of what I faced during the wars.” She sighed. “In addition, you will never be able to bear children, however much your mother wants you to.” She gave me a sad smile. “It means feeling alone.”
“You said we save the world by working together, not alone,” I objected.
“So I did,” Gran said and patted my hand. “You will one day have to surrender your life as the Morrigan to the Sundering—that is, your power being broken apart and given to another—and live your life alone after.”
“After,” I echoed. A haunting feeling filled me. “After” felt far away, and I didn’t want to think about it. I stared into the distance and thought about the children trapped in that building. About how they were...
Alone and on the brink of death.
Something firmed up within me, and I spoke with resolve. “I have to.”
Gran nodded. “So be it.” Her eyes teared up, and in an earnest voice, she added, “You will be wonderful, Angelica. The best.”
“What comes next?” I asked.
Gran looked once more at our clasped hands. I also looked and drew in a sharp gasp. Her hands were beginning to change. A second ago, they had been strong and calloused, weathered by time and the sun but capable of pulling weeds for hours. Now, her fingers were thin, the skin far more wrinkled and covered with dark sunspots. Her hand shook as she clutched at me.
My eyes traveled up the old woman’s arms to her face to find her previously graying hair was now ash-white. Her eyes had sunk deep into her face. Her hands were no longer warm and smooth but cold and rough to the touch.
I was drugged, was my next thought. My breathing became irregular as the charm slipped off Gran and...
The cottage, too. My eyes traveled about the kitchen and into the den off it. The colors were muted, and clutter sprang up where I had not seen any before. Even the sunlight glinting through the window seemed paler. The garden outside appeared overgrown, as if the weeds we had pulled yesterday had sprung up once more.
The safety and warmth I had felt since arriving vanished.
Where did it go? I wanted to ask, but my heart felt too heavy.
Finally, I looked at Gran again, and she gave me a slow, sad smile. The glimmer in her eyes was gone. She looked weary. “It seems as though the Way of Kings is with you now, my dear, since my glamour is no longer working on you.”
“Glamour?” I repeated. I’d been deceived this whole time? I sprang up, panic welling within me. “This has to stop, Gran. Whatever trick you and Mum are playing on me, it’s not funny.”
Gran’s smile vanished, and cold anger entered her eyes. “It is no trick, Angelica.”
I was shaking. “You never came to visit me? You never thought it might be a good idea to get to know me before dumping all this onto me?” My anger showed me one thing: I believed her. Damn. I believed her, and I wished more than anything that I didn’t.
Gran looked down at her hands. “Your power will become stronger, and you will see it for yourself.” She spoke in a low yet firm voice.
My heart clenched, and hot tears stung my eyes. “Why did you stay away?” I demanded.
Gran sniffed, trying to hold back her own tears. “Being alone is the first of many sacrifices to be made on the road to becoming the Morrigan.”
The Second Morrigan
“What’s it like, being wanted by every person who lays their eyes on you?”
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br /> The Morrigan turned, her face glowing, eyes alight. She knew her sister did not ask the question to wound her but out of genuine curiosity. It was true; the Way of Kings was upon her. Every man, woman, and child who beheld her wanted to serve her.
She shrugged. “The effect of being the Sun, I suppose.” She and her sister laughed. Since taking the first Morrigan’s power into their three bodies, the sisters had named themselves Sun, Moon, and Stars. Sun for power. Moon for wisdom. Stars for Strength, the eldest of the three recited to herself.
“It feels much like what I would think you feel like,” Sun answered aloud.
Moon huffed. “Being prayed to every given second. ‘Tell me what I must do! Tell me what I must do!’” She shook her head.
Sun smirked. “Are you complaining?”
Moon brightened. “Not at all.” Her face fell. “I just...can’t quite believe She did it all on her own.”
Sun agreed. That day they had come onto the empty battlefield where so many wars had been fought, they had seen Her, and she had been...powerless. Empty.
Moon’s tone was distant as she brushed the silver hair out of her pale face. “She did it for hundreds of years.” Her dark eyes traveled over the still water of the fountain she sat by. The blue water reflected her in silence.
“Did what for hundreds of years?” a voice asked. Moon looked up to find her taller, younger sister sauntering in, half-eaten apple in her hand. The sleeves of her loose white dress dripped lazily over her shoulders. Her chestnut hair flowed in heavy curls down her back. Her posture was straight, eyes bright and searching.
Stars looked at her sisters to gauge their conversation. “Oh, yes, of course.” She sighed and sank onto a plush sofa opposite the fountain. Sun looked at the pillars that surrounded them and supported the roof of their enclosure. During their time here, they had carved their stories into the marble. At times, they had fought in separate units since there had been too many wars for them to address together. At other times, they had stood together, victorious and full of glory.
Sun felt the weight of it and shook her head. “I don’t know how she did it, either.”
She couldn’t imagine being on a battlefield in any of her forms alone. Her power could bend anyone to her will, but without the wisdom of Moon and the strength of Stars, she would be fragile.
She could feel the darkness gathering within her, shadows creeping to the surface. She banished them and shook her head. “That’s why she was so feared. They hated her. They served her, yes, but they did not love her.”
Sun was right. The first Morrigan had been loathed. With so much power in one body, she had come close to failure too many times. Countless lives had been lost. She had killed innocent children. Sun wasn’t sure she wouldn’t have done the same had no one been holding her accountable.
Moon shifted. “Together. That’s how this works.” She gave Sun a reassuring smile to tell her they were in this as a unit. They were, however, humans with godlike powers. The first Morrigan, they remembered, had been a goddess, but she was a goddess no more. Her power had passed to the humans, the very creatures she had sought to set against the gods’ wills.
One day, Sun thought, we’ll go to war against the gods.
Stars took a large bite of her apple, and her chewing was loud. Sun and Moon looked at her, lips quirking. “What?” she asked, her mouth full.
Moon giggled. Sun smiled. “Nothing. It’s just, I remember being human and how we always worked together.”
Stars’ brows rose. “We still work together.”
Sun nodded. “Yes. Yes, we do.”
Chapter Seven
“Three sisters sing, three sisters sing.
One sings of that glorious melting sun.
The second sings of that full moon hanging low in the burdened sky.
The third sings of the burning stars, how they dance themselves to death.
Three sisters sing, three sisters sing.”
—Ancient Book of Morrigan, Passage IV
I needed a break.
I came here on holiday, and now I need a holiday from my holiday.
“You will know when you need to go,” Gran said, regarding my dream.
I rose from the breakfast table again, coffee cold, and decided I needed to take a nice, long drive. “I’m going to Swartshire. I’ll be back by the evening.”
Gran nodded and began puttering around in her cottage again as if our fraught conversation and her glamour leaving her had not just happened.
I collected my things and made my way down the hill to where my car was parked. I need more coffee, I decided. My stash, after Gran had gotten into it, was running quite low. Fortunately, I was able to find another road to Swartshire, so I wouldn’t have to go through the forest with the fork in the road.
Only three days ago, I came through. It had been an eternity. I felt like I had died and gone to some weird hell. The place was peaceful, but my nightmares were bleeding into my waking life.
The road I took was well-paved, with low stone walls flanking it for some distance. The rolling hills revealed plenty of grazing cattle, horses, and sheep. I didn’t see very many people.
I took my time on the drive, observing the trees and the wildlife I passed. When I went by a large tree whose boughs extended over the road, I noticed it was full of moving dark figures. I slowed the car enough that I could hear the chugging of the motor. “Crows, of course,” I murmured, this time with a tone of awe rather than annoyance.
They were flitting about but not cawing incessantly. The longer I idled, the more pairs of beady black eyes fixed on me. Goosebumps rose on my arms and neck. The next second, I jumped when a car horn blared behind me.
I glanced in my rearview mirror to find a car stopped behind me. I had idled in the road for too long. I threw up my hand and started off again.
Even as I increased the car’s speed, I couldn’t help glancing at the tree in my mirror. My eyes drifted from it to the driver of the car behind me. He looked to be muttering angrily to himself. I was just thinking he reminded me of every other angry driver I’d encountered when my eyes snagged on the tree once more. The mass of dark crows abandoned the tree. They all took flight simultaneously and filled the sky with their beating wings.
I swear, if they follow me...
My threat trailed off as I refocused on the road, my heart pumping faster than it had moments ago.
As I drove on, one side of the road became thick with trees. I paid little attention to them as I approached a bend in the road around which I could not see. The man behind me had decided riding my ass was a good idea.
As soon as I rounded the bend, my heart jumped into my throat. Slamming my foot on the brake, I squealed to a stop. Something had jumped out in front of me. Heart thundering, I realized the black-furred animal took up more than half the width of the road.
A wolf. The wolf. The one I had seen the day before.
Its ice-blue eyes turned from the car to me. We locked gazes, and adrenaline rushed in. Not from fear, I realized, but from power. I felt strong. I felt like...
I was not supposed to be in this car. I was supposed to be in...that. I stared at the wolf and swallowed the lump forming in my throat. I am not afraid of you. I am not afraid of you.
I jumped again as the car horn blared behind me once more.
Can he not see the wolf in the middle of the damn road? The man pressed his horn again and again and—
I turned around in my seat and shouted out the window, “Can’t you see the wolf in the middle of the fucking road?”
The man’s face turned crimson with rage, and he began to roll his window down. I glanced once more at the road to find that it was...
Empty? The wolf was gone. Where the hell...
As I gaped at the empty and open road, the man behind me squealed around me, shouting a string of words out his window that I couldn’t hear over my heartbeat in my ears. I didn’t need to hear his words to guess what he had said, though. I
gripped the steering wheel.
Maybe he didn’t see it. This thought didn’t help. Was I crazy? This place was making me nuts. I could hardly wait to get into Swartshire, where there were normal people doing normal things. Hopefully.
Northern England was more likely to have hamlets scattered about than cities. I preferred them, and as I drove into the quaint settlement, I finally felt as though I were on a vacation.
The road narrowed, and I had to make more turns. On the right side, green pastures sloped downward. Daisies grew in masses. On the left stood a cluster of houses with small, square windows in which vases sat. The daisies from the road waved to me from the windows.
Shops flanked either side of the wide street once I got into town. Many of them were painted white, their windows glistening in the sunlight. Finally, I thought. Something feels good.
There were few people on the street, and I wondered how they would welcome a newcomer, given the disease spreading across the world. I decided to chance it when I saw a pound shop three doors down. Coffee was on my mind again. As I began to search for a spot to park, my eyes snagged on the darkness of an alley between a bank and a café. I jolted to a stop when it filled with a large, dark figure.
It was hard not to miss the pair of ice-blue eyes staring out at me from that darkness. How did he get here so fast? The wolf pawed the ground but did not lick his chops. His fur did not bristle. He simply gazed at me. I gripped the wheel, my knuckles turning white. I was seeing things. I closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them again, the wolf was gone.
I was becoming as bat-shit crazy as Gran. I was still looking at the empty alley when my foot went back to the gas pedal.
A cry of alarm sounded in front of me and I jolted, switching my foot to slam on my brake. My eyes darted to where I had heard the cry, and I noticed a man who had just passed my car. He wore blue overalls and a long-sleeved shirt that was rolled up to his elbows.