Falling
Page 15
“Oh! I’m David Elder. I’m a friend of Erin’s.”
“Ah, yes! Yes. Of course,” Merlin nodded as if he should have known that.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Where are you? And how are you talking to us through this cup?” Erin asked.
“Oh…er… It’s hard to explain where I am. Suffice it to say that I’m here to talk to you. And the chalice, not cup, my dear, is magical. I created it to hold my powers just before Nimuë imprisoned me into the oak.”
“So, you’re still in that oak tree?”
Merlin looked to either side of him. “Perhaps? I’m more in a world of my own creation. But that’s not what we are here to talk of today, is it? Erin, you’ve come to me to take your place as the high priestess of the Vallen. I’m proud of you for making this decision.” He sighed heavily. “There was never a sadder day for me than when your grandmother, Bridget, decided to abdicate the position. She would not even hear of transferring the power to anyone else. She said the idea was old and out of touch with the real world.” He paused again. “Well, what she really said was that I was old and out of touch, but I knew she didn’t mean it personally.” He gave them a wan smile.
“Um… I’m sorry, sir, but you are old,” Erin said, with a giggle. “I mean, really, King Arthur? That had to have been, what…?” She looked up at David for confirmation. “Two thousand years ago, nearly?”
He shrugged. “Something like that.”
“Well, yes.” Merlin sounded a little exasperated. “But I do keep up. I mean, I watch what is going on in the world. I understand the challenges the current high priestess must contend with. But someone creative and determined can get beyond all that.”
Erin cocked her head. She still needed to know more. “So, what exactly is it that the high priestess does?”
Merlin raised a thick, white eyebrow. “Why she reigns over all the Vallen. She helps those who need it—usually people who have done something wrong with their magic and need help extricating themselves or fixing the problem. She polices those who use their powers for their own gain or to harm others. And,” he waved his hands about, “generally watches over her people.”
“She’s like a queen?” David asked.
“Yes,” Merlin answered.
“Without a parliament or congress or anyone to watch over her to make sure she doesn’t take advantage of her position?” Erin asked.
“I am here, although I’ve never had to step in,” Merlin explained. “We did have one…but her successor took care of that—Morgan, you know.”
“No, I don’t know,” Erin said. All the books in the trunk caught her eye. The stories must be in there, she thought.
“Ah, well, perhaps you will find the time to read through the books and journals and learn our history,” Merlin suggested gently.
“It looks like quite a bit of reading, but I will,” Erin agreed.
“So, this high priestess polices all the Vallen in the world?” David asked. “Without benefit of judge or jury?”
“Yes. That’s right. This is more of a monarchy, as you suggested earlier, not one of your modern democracies.”
“But there are probably thousands, if not millions of Vallen throughout the world,” Erin said.
“Ah, and therein lies the problem,” Merlin said, a small smile wavering on his lips. “The institution of the high priestess began with Morgan of Avalon, you know her as Morgan le Fey, when we numbered in the hundreds and were all clustered together either on Avalon or nearby on the main land of England. But today… Well, the world is a lot bigger, isn’t it?”
“Morgan le Fey? Really?” David said in awe.
“Oh, yes. Erin is a direct descendent of Morgan. Didn’t you know that? That’s what makes her the high priestess,” Merlin explained.
“I am? It does?” Erin squeaked.
Merlin nodded. “The seventh child in the line of Morgan is destined to become the high priestess upon her, or his—we have had one male—twenty-first birthday.”
“Oh! But I’m twenty-four, nearly twenty-five,” Erin said.
“Then it is past time that you took your oath and put on the mantle, isn’t it?” Merlin said, looking happy, eager even, for the first time since they’d been speaking with him.
Erin looked at David. She didn’t know if she could do this. She turned back to Merlin. “But I don’t know the first thing about ruling people, or policing them, or fixing magical problems. I mean, I don’t even know how to use my own powers—if I have any besides knowing how someone is feeling.”
“Ah yes, well, when you take the oath, you’ll get more power. You are given the power to do all that you’ll need to do, I assure you,” Merlin said.
“And how would you rule over people who don’t even know that you exist?” David asked. “Completely forgetting the point that there are Vallen on every continent around the world, how could you possibly rule thousands, if not millions, of people?” He turned to look at Merlin. “I’m sorry, sir, but this just isn’t practical.”
The old man sighed. “And here we come to why Bridget gave up the position. That is precisely what she said.”
“And she was right,” Erin agreed.
“Was she? Do you not have, what do you call it? Wireless? No, that was in Bridget’s time. Today you have so much more.” He turned his head to the side, clearly trying to remember something. “Internet? I cannot fathom how such a thing works.” He laughed. “It’s magic to me. But you understand it, do you not?”
Erin smiled. “Yes. We do have the internet. I can’t say I completely understand how it works either, but I know how to use it.”
“There you go,” he said happily. “You can communicate with your thousands. Or make yourself available to them. And for the rest, well, it is up to you how you realize the position. It is whatever you make of it.”
“So I can do as much or as little as I want? Recreate the position to fit me and life today?” Erin asked.
“Precisely!” Now he was getting positively excited.
Erin laughed and asked, “How to do I take this oath? How do I become the high priestess?”
Merlin became serious again. “Ah, that’s a good question. It used to be that you would go to Stonehenge on the night of your twenty-first birthday.”
“Oh. Um…that’s a little far for me,” Erin said. She wasn’t one hundred percent certain she wanted to become the high priestess, but the idea was tempting. Not because she wanted power, but because of the people she could help—people like her who had never even known that they were Vallen or what they could do. People who just wanted to help others and might just have the power to do so if only they knew it.
“Yes, yes, I understand,” Merlin was saying. “Er, do you have a forest nearby? Perhaps one that has an oak tree?”
“I don’t know, I suppose so. Yes, I’m sure I could find an oak tree,” she said, correcting herself. She looked to David, but he just shrugged. He was from New Mexico. What did he know of oak trees in DC or Maryland where her parents lived?
“All right. Then take this chalice and the water skin to the oak tree and call upon me there,” Merlin said. The water shimmered and he disappeared.
“He’s gone,” she said disappointed.
“Are you going to do that, Erin?” David asked, his voice a little breathless in surprise.
“I don’t know. I…I think so,” she said. “I haven’t fully made up my mind yet, but… There are so many thoughts running through my head. They’re all jumbled up and confused.” She shook her head as if she could shake the thoughts into some order. “I think I need to sleep on it.”
He nodded. “That sounds like the best idea.” He stood up and stretched.
Erin piled the books back into the trunk but kept the chalice and its water skin out. David gave her a questioning look when he noticed what she was doing.
“Well, if I decide to do it, I’ll need these,” she explained.
“Okay.” He shrugged.
“No. I’ve got work in the morning, and I’ll want to check in on Shawn as well.”
“Oh, right. Yikes! I nearly forgot! Ugh, what a pest, I’m going to have to get up early to take the metro in.”
“Well, do you want to come stay at my place?” he offered, then raised his hands when she hesitated. “Just to sleep, nothing else, I promise.”
She laughed. “No. Thanks. I think I’ll just stay here and get up early.” She then bent to peek through the window. The sky was already beginning to lighten with the dawn. “Or, maybe I’ll just go in now and forget about sleeping.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Erin was nursing her second cup of coffee at Uncle Sam’s when Lanie plopped into the seat across from her.
“Ooh, are you not going to finish those?” she asked, pulling Erin’s half-eaten plate of chocolate chip pancakes toward her.
“No. Help yourself,” she said, laughing at her friend. “Although, maybe I should take them home. They might be the only food I’ll be able to afford very soon.”
Lanie paused and slid a clean fork out of her mouth. “What do you mean?” she asked around her mouthful of food.
“I think I’m about to do something incredibly stupid, and possibly the most intelligent thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Erin answered.
Lanie thought about that for a minute while she chewed. “Okay, you stumped me.”
Erin laughed. “I’m going to quit my job, which means I’ll have to move out of Whitmeyer’s apartment. I won’t have any money because I’ll be unemployed, and I won’t have any place to live.”
Lanie shrugged. “You can always move in with me. I’ve got a perfectly good floor. It could probably be quite comfortable if you put an air mattress on it. But why are you going to quit your job? Has Whitmeyer permanently fallen off that pedestal?” She knew how much Erin had always admired the congressman, and how disappointed she’d been when he’d shown himself to be an asshole with a mistress.
“Yeah, pretty much. You know he threw me out last night—after saving me from Hugh.”
Lanie’s eyes went wide. “No, I didn’t know.”
Erin nodded as she took another sip of her coffee. “I ended up going to my parents’. It was a good thing though because my mom and I made up, and I spent the rest of the night, after we all left the hospital, with David. We learned all about this high priestess thing.”
“Ooh, tell me!” Lanie said, just before popping another forkful of pancake into her mouth.
Lanie’s eyes got wider and wider as Erin told her all about Merlin and how she was thinking of taking up the gauntlet, which the wizard had thrown at her feet.
“So are you going to do it?” Lanie asked. She’d completely forgotten about the food as Erin told her tale.
“I think I am. But that means I’ll have to quit my job. If I’m going to do this, I’ve got to do it right and really devote all my time to it.”
“But then, yeah… How will you support yourself?”
Erin thought about it. “I think if I could get some financial backers, I could start a non-profit.”
“Do you know any wealthy Vallen?” Lanie asked, stealing a sip of Erin’s coffee. She made a face. “Ugh, I forgot you don’t put in sugar.”
Erin laughed and turned to find the waitress. She made eye contact with her and ordered Lanie her own coffee with just the use of hand signals.
“You’re the best,” Erin said, smiling up at the waitress as she delivered Lanie’s coffee a moment later. The waitress gave her a pearly-white smile and went to take care of her other customers.
Lanie heaped in the Equal and cream, just the way she liked it.
“I don’t know if they’re Vallen or not, but I do know a number of wealthy people who’ve donated to Whitmeyer. I could maybe try and figure out, discreetly, if they are. I can also ask my parents if they know any. Once I get the ball rolling on this, I think I’ll be okay,” Erin admitted.
Lanie just shook her head. “I am always amazed at your networking skills.”
Erin gave a little smile. “Well, Hugh was good for something. He taught me how to work a room.”
###
“How are you doing, Shawn?” David asked, pulling up a chair next to Shawn’s bed.
“Better,” the boy answered.
He looked better. He had some rosy color to his cheeks, and the grayish tinge that had been there the night before was gone.
“Are you able to breath all right?” David asked, noting that the oxygen had also been removed.
Shawn nodded. “Thanks to that lady. Who was she? I didn’t just dream that, did I? I swear it almost feels like it was a dream.”
David just smiled. “It kind of does, doesn’t it. She’s a nurse and, um, my girlfriend’s mother.”
“Oh. What’d she do to me, man? I mean, I know she did somethin’,” Shawn asked.
David widened his eyes a little and feigned innocence. “She just made you feel better. She’s a nurse. They can do that.”
“Shit. She must be some nurse.” Shawn shook his head in amazement.
David just smiled. “Yes, she is.”
“So, um…” Shawn paused. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful or anything, but why’re you here? Why were you here last night and with that nurse and all them people?”
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” David explained. “The others were here to keep me company. I was feeling bad because of what happened.”
“Yeah, but why? I mean, I’m nobody. Just a kid you had to help get out of jail.”
“I think you’re somebody. I think you’re a nice kid, and you’ve got great potential,” David said.
“That’s what that hot chick said last night. The one with the long blonde hair.”
“That’s my girlfriend.”
“Oh. Man, she’s smokin’!”
“I know.” David smiled, thinking just how sexy Erin was and how good she made him feel. David then remembered Shawn’s history. “You’ve got a girlfriend, don’t you?”
“Me?” Shawn’s voice rose to almost a squeak.
“Isn’t that why you put on your brother’s jacket to begin with?”
“Oh, um… Yeah, that was to impress a girl, but she ain’t mine,” Shawn explained.
“Well, not yet,” David added with a wink.
Shawn just smiled. “You’re a pretty cool dude…for a lawyer.”
David laughed. “Thanks! Hey, where do you and your friends hang out after school?”
“At the rec center. Why?”
David nodded. That’s what he’d pulled from Shawn’s mind earlier. It’s what he’d told the judge when they’d spoken about freeing Shawn from jail. He just wanted to make sure. “I might volunteer there. What do you think? Would you be all right with that?”
Shawn looked taken aback for a moment but then gave a little smile. “Yeah. That’d be cool.”
“Good!” David thought he was crazy, but this was really what he wanted to do with his life—not be a lawyer but help kids. He’d realized it the previous night as he waited for Shawn to come out of surgery, and again while he and Erin had been talking at the diner.
He wanted to be here for kids like Shawn. He wanted to be someone these kids could rely on, someone who could teach them that there was so much more they could do with their lives than get involved in drugs and gangs; so much more that they could aspire to beyond menial, tedious jobs. That’s what David wanted to do. He owed it to his brother, and he owed it to kids like Shawn.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The moon was nearly full when Erin, her parents, and David snuck into the park two days later.
Erin wished her siblings and Lanie could have been there, but having just three people along was risky enough. More would have been impossible. This was going to be the most important night of her life. She wanted everyone who was dear to her to be here, but Merlin had insisted on doing
this at midnight.
Erin had brought the chalice and the water skin. She clutched the handle of the bag so tightly her fingers were tingling.
“I can’t believe we’re breaking the law like this,” her mother whispered as they moved as quietly as they could down the path.
“These are the only oak trees I could find,” Erin explained for perhaps the tenth time.
“And Merlin insisted on oak trees?” her father confirmed.
“Yes,” both she and David said together.
Her mother paused and then grabbed at both Erin and her father, making a “shh” sound. Up ahead, coming around a bend, was someone carrying a flashlight. They all stepped quietly behind some trees just off the path and held their breath.
A security guard or park ranger came whistling down the path. Every once in a while, he would shine his light on either side of the path as he walked on. He clearly didn’t expect to see anything since it was only a cursory glance.
He walked past, shining his light into the trees on the opposite side from where they were all standing. It was a full minute after he’d past before Erin heard someone exhale. They all somehow knew to wait another few minutes after he had moved on to come out from the trees.
“That was too close,” her mother said after they were back on the path.
“He’s done his rounds, so he probably won’t be back this way for a while,” David pointed out.
They all nodded their agreement but moved a little faster and more quietly to where Erin had found the oak trees the previous day.
Once again, they stepped into the woods amongst the trees. This time, Erin pulled out the chalice and unwrapped it from its protective covering. Her hands were trembling slightly as she held it out for David to pour in the water.
“Smell this,” she said, holding out the chalice to her parents after the bottom had been covered.
Her mother took a whiff. “Oh my. It smells like…”
“Fresh air,” her father said when her mother paused.
“Sunshine,” David put in.