The woman before him, covered in detritus, had given up the sort of destiny most people couldn’t imagine. She had stumbled into a life that she hadn’t foreseen and she had discovered, probably to her own amazement, that she had uncovered a side of herself she didn’t even realise had existed.
He was an idiot. A complete and total dickhead. He had been so obsessed with wondering about what might have been that he had almost – no, fuck almost, he had – completely failed to see what actually had been.
Did it matter if plans didn’t pan out, if the end result was a day-to-day existence that meant something?
Not just to him, but to people who mattered. He had a little boy who adored him, a baby son who needed him right now to wipe shit from his ass-crack and try (mostly in vain) to pilot lumps of baby-mush into the reluctant aircraft hangar of his mouth.
Easy things. Mundane things. But the time would come when that same little boy would come to need him for vastly more important and more complex things than that. Would need his father to guide him into becoming an honest-to-God person in his own right.
He looked again at Glon and Gaim, peering out from behind their mother. Their magnificent mother. He felt like embracing her, but in his current less-than-real state, he wondered if it wouldn’t end up with him somehow steering her body around again. That, or it would somehow count as cheating on Ellie…
“And this,” the older Morrigan’s voice said sadly, “is where it all starts to go wrong.”
It took three words.
“Humans,” said Bres, “are mortal.”
The Morrigan flinched. Danny saw Bres’ eyes light up at this. He pressed the line of attack. “You are prepared to live as a human? To die as one?”
“Yes,” she said, but her hands gripped her children tightly, and Danny knew.
“And your children?” Bres said softly. “They will be human too. Subject to the ravages of winters. Of time. Of disease. Hunger. Thirst.”
He dropped to one knee and smiled such a warm and winning smile that it was hard to reconcile it with the words he’d just finished speaking. He beckoned, and before the Morrigan could stop them, Glon and Gaim freed themselves from her grasp with a jerk of their shoulders and padded over to this shining stranger, this broad-shouldered crowned warrior who smiled at them and spoke to them in words they didn’t understand…not fully, but they could almost make some of it out…and he patted their heads and nodded approvingly while they preened with pride to be given such attention by this God.
Watching them, watching all of this, the younger Morrigan seemed to be visibly shrinking in size. She closed her eyes and when they opened, Danny could see the spark of defiance that had shone within them had dimmed markedly.
A few shouts came from the group of humans. Seeing his older sons with the leader of this fresh band of strangers, Caderyn, little Coscar in his arms, had abandoned his former post of marshalling the villagers. He walked to his wife and seeing her expression, he extended his free arm and put it around her shoulders, drawing her to him. She didn’t resist. They embraced for a moment.
“Da!” Gaim shouted. “Da, did you see our Ma fightin?!”
“Come here to me,” Caderyn said, breaking off from the embrace. “Both of you. Now.”
Bres winked at the boys and inclined very slightly with his head toward their father, to Danny’s displeasure – who did the bastard think he was, to give permission? Glon and Gaim duly trotted back to their parents side, fairly bouncing with excitement still.
“I will do my best to protect this settlement,” Bres said graciously. “But if the trials ahead are as challenging as our soothsayers fear, we may not have the warriors to spare. Who will protect you then, from rogue Formorians, or from worse? Who will protect those you love?”
“What’s he saying to you?” Cadeyn asked his wife.
“He wants me to go back to them.”
“To your people?”
“Yes.”
“And become…the Morrigan…again?”
“Yes,” she sighed.
Glon and Gaim squealed with joy, their reactions overlapping with one another but of a very similar vein. “Do it Ma! Do it! Let’s all go! Go live with them! Go be warriors! Kill real monsters! Just like we always played, but for real, Ma! Please, Da, can we?”
“No.”
Caderyn looked at his wife as she spoke the word. Danny felt a surge of respect for this man. Fuck knew what year this was, but whether he’d ever had anything that could in modern times be described as an education, Caderyn was clearly nobody’s fool.
“Because of me,” Caderyn guessed.
“Yes.”
The excitement of the children was snuffed out in a moment. “Why, Ma? Why?” Glon asked.
It was Caderyn who answered. “Because I’m just a man, son. You’re like your mother. Or enough like her and her people anyway. They wouldn’t have me where they live.
“You wouldn’t survive there,” the Morrigan said. She couldn’t meet her husband’s eyes. The baby began to fuss, so she took little Coscar from his arms and shushed him, and for a few moments no-one moved or spoke until the baby was silent again.
“What do you want?” he asked her. “Who do you want to be?”
She looked at him and she smiled.
“I’m Regan,” she said. “Your wife. Now and for always.”
With that, she kissed him and passed him little Coscar. This done, she patted her two boys on the head and looked at them with what seemed to be an apology on her face, before she turned to Bres.
“I’ve made my choice,” she said. “Now go.”
Danny half expected the Tuatha King to throw a tantrum or order his warriors to attack. He was steeling himself for the massacre that would ensue if he did so, and preparing himself for trying to put some distance between he and his guide, to try and wish himself into existence here. Much as she was reluctant for him to meddle with events here, he wasn’t going to stand by and witness another bloodbath without doing something, even if all he managed was one solid hit on that smug bastard’s nose before he was cleaved in two…
Bres only nodded.
“Your heritage will take nine days to fade,” he said shortly, beckoning for his horse to be brought to him and hopping lightly onto its broad back with a deftness of athleticism a human could never have hoped to match, “you have that amount of time to come to your senses.”
“I already have.”
“We shall see,” he said. “You would have been welcome back in my Halls, Morrigan. I can only hope there is still a welcome for you here…among your chosen people.”
At a signal and with a cry, he and the rest of the Tuatha rode off, hooves thundering into the distance. It took several minutes before they passed into the shade of the surrounding trees and village in the clearing – or what remained of it - was again free from outsiders.
All save one, it seemed.
Already Danny could see the looks. As the survivors scattered, some to weep over fallen relatives and friends, some simply to retreat to their homes and shiver, no one came within twenty feet of the Morrigan and her family, and those who came closest outside of that radius looked at her with such suspicion and fear, bordering on hostility, that Bres’ words made sharp and cruel sense.
All alone in the crowd, the Morrigan and her family walked to their home.
He looked at his companion with a heavy heart. “It’s not as simple as that, is it,” he asked. “Not as simple as making the good choice and living happily ever after with it.”
She shook her head, looking at her younger self.
“It never is,” she said.
* * *
The Road of Trials
Belfast, 1975 AD
The bar was laden with smoke. A jukebox in the corner blasted out Mott the Hoople’s All The Young Dudes and standing before it, mouthing along to the words of the anthem, were three young ladies half wearing a third of a skirt each. Anthony Morrigan – ‘Tony’ now to
his mates – watched every bump and grind, the pint glass held in his hand unconsciously mimicking their motions.
“You’re gonna get eye strain. Ya dirty fucker.”
He sipped his pint and grinned. “My vision’s 20-20 Johnny, believe you me.”
“I wasn’t talkin about those eyes,” Johnny retorted, poking his fingers at his friend’s face. Tony laughed and blocked the attack, turning back to the bar and away from the show, albeit reluctantly. “You’re like a man just outta Long Kesh. Anybody’d think you hadn’t seen a flash of gee in years.”
“Aye well,” Tony replied, swirling the beer thoughtfully in the glass as he spoke, “work keeps me busy Johnny, ya know? Sometimes I’d be out on the road for a fair few weeks at a time, like. It’s always good to get back to the city and let off a little…” he paused, and winked exaggeratedly for comedic effect, “…steam.”
“Aye. Steam. Sure.”
Tony caught the barman’s attention. “What the ladies drinkin, mucker?”
“Vodkas. And see the wee blondie in the middle?”
“Yeah?”
The barman raised his eyebrows with the conspiratorial air of someone passing on a hot tip for the 3.30 at Chepstow. “Doubles.”
Tony grinned. Johnny patted his shoulder. “I take it you’ve chosen your victim then, man?”
“What the fuck,” Tony shrugged. He signalled to the barman who dutifully began pouring three vodkas, one a double measure, and began preparing himself for the task at hand. He’d saunter over with the drinks held casually – Johnny in tail – and open with a nice wee line; Jesus that dancin must be makin yis all thirsty and after watchin yis I know my tongue’s hangin out…
Cheesy, but it’d do. He’d never had much trouble with the oul gift of the gab. It was what happened after the first few liaisons that gave him the headaches; inevitably they’d start asking questions about what he did, where he worked, making noises about meeting his family…how was he meant to respond?
He grinned humourlessly to himself as the first two vodkas were placed on the bar in front of him. In these crazy times, a guy could make some serious headway with a girl by claiming to be in one group or another, by flashing a wee pistol stashed away in his jacket.
Fighting for the cause, so far as he could see, was less about political idealism or nationalistic fervour and more about having something exotic about ye that would make the wee dames drop their knickers at the first flash of a gun barrel, imagining they were jumping into the sack with Michael Collins.
Imagine if he tried telling the truth as a chat-up line –
“Hey, how’s it goin? What’s this in my jacket? Ach it’s only my iron knuckle-dusters. Did you know they can cleave a faerie’s head in if you hit it in the right place hard enough? Course they’re not as good as foxglove tea – I have a few home-made hand-grenades filled with that back in the house, if you’re interested. Why the fuck would I have these, you ask? Well it’s to defend the country from being overrun by magical creatures from the Otherworld trying to tear down the dimensional barrier between their world and ours…wait, where are you goin? Who’s these cunts with the white jackets…?”
What would the Army make of his armoury if they ever decided to raid his house? He might end up the only person interred in history for possession of herbs and spices.
Seven years. Seven fucking years, ever since that day on the Mournes. Up and down and across this miserable wee island, chasing shadows and shades and worse things besides. He’d fought changelings in castle ruins, battled faerie soldiers in back alleys while the British fought the IRA mere streets away. He’d even caught a glimpse once or twice of the upper ranks of their forces. Only the speed of his car had allowed him to escape from one such near-encounter; it had taken him three bone-chilling hours the next day to remove the webbing from its rear bumper.
Webbing. Webbing. His body gave an involuntary convulsion as this ripple of remembrance passed across him. Forcing the thought away, he handed payment to the barman in the form of a twenty pound note. The barman’s eyes bogged slightly and he muttered to himself as he went to the till – giving Tony change out of that would probably use up most of his float.
Of course, Tony mused to himself, this life did have some advantages; thanks to Brian and his continued assistance, he hadn’t wanted for anything financially for some years now. Creepy little faerie he may be, but he had a knack for casting a luck charm so potent that it made picking winners at Aintree a simple matter of closing your eyes and sticking a pen in the newspaper.
The money that little skill generated from betting shops across the Province allowed him to maintain the façade that he had some high-paid job or other. He told people it was in consultancy and their eyes immediately glazed over so that no further questions were forthcoming. But the stark facts were that Tony Morrigan was twenty-one years of age and nights like this, where he was not even slightly concerned with the safety of humanity, but was deeply concerned with the safety of wee blondie’s hemline, were all too rare for him as to be practically extinct.
He seized the vodkas, gave a nod to Johnny, and turned ready to seize the night-
“Ach for fucks sake…” he said.
“Sorry son,” James Morrigan said. He nodded to Johnny who nodded back, before returning his attention to Tony. “We need to go. Now.”
“No, we don’t,” Tony replied. He stepped forward and to the side, meaning to circumvent his father and bring the drinks to their intended audience.
James sidestepped to track his movement, blocking him off squarely. There remained some sympathy in his eyes, but it was draining away rapidly. “Son,” he said again, his tone harder, “you know I wouldn’t come here unless it was urgent. We need to go.”
So go Tony did, handing the drinks to a confused Johnny and walking with his father to the front door of the bar. As his father walked out and into the cold December night and the blast of frigid air rushed in, fresh and crisp, Tony wanted nothing more than to stay in there, in the sweaty warm mass of bodies of young people out for a good time together, and the sniff of a possible fuck in the air from the girls in the corner. He even caught blondie’s eye for a moment and saw her pause in her dancing, and then be called back to it by her mates, turning away from him. Well, why wouldn’t she? He was leaving after all.
The car journey was far from silent, but the vast majority of the talking was being done by the driver and not his moody passenger, staring at the lights of Belfast as they began to recede into the distance.
“…listening to a word I’m saying?”
He sighed. “Yes, Da. Sword of Nuada. Unstoppable magic weapon. Have to stop them gettin it. Orders received and understood.”
Tony could sense the irritation coming from his father. “You gonna get on like a spoiled fuckin brat because I ruined your night out? Is that what this is?”
“Yeah,” Tony shrugged. “Yeah that about sums it up Da, yeah.”
“Listen to yourself. Jesus Christ Tony, this is important-“
“Why us?” Tony cut him off, now glaring directly over at the older man. “Why us, Da, runnin about like two fuckin lunatics all over the country? Ya know what Johnny Dougan – that was him in the bar, by the way, last seen makin his way to the three dames in the corner – ya know what he did with himself last month? Joined a fuckin five-a-side team. Woo. Big fuckin excitement, eh? Except guess what? He loves it. He was tellin me all about it. That’s why I don’t see much of him anymore, even when we are back in Belfast, because he’s out drinkin with them after the matches. I’m losin them, Da. I don’t see wee Seamy McGlinch or Mickey anymore either. Why? Because I’m too busy savin the fuckin country from supernatural apocalypse!”
They drove on in silence for a few miles after that outburst. As usual, Tony began to feel that hot pressure in his gut, that little ball of shame that only formed when he knew he was in the wrong. He suppressed it. He pushed it down as best he could, because he was determined not to give in on thi
s one.
“I told ye on the mountain, that first day,” his father said, in a voice almost swallowed by the rattle of the Triumph (a car whose name was becoming increasingly sardonic with each fresh year of wear and tear that settled upon it), “that you didn’t have to follow me into this life.”
“Yeah, ye did,” Tony replied. “And you lied, didn’t ye.”
There it was. He’d said it. Long years he’d been waiting to get that off his chest, and finally there it was, out there, contrary to his expectations and hopes he didn’t suddenly feel a great release of pressure at its passing. He felt suffocated and wretched. His father had flinched at the words, physically recoiled, and the car had weaved for an instant on the road before he’d brought it back to an even keel.
“Yes,” James Morrigan said. “Yes, I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because you deserved to think this life was a choice.”
“But it isn’t. It’s either us or nobody. And if it’s nobody, then they win.”
“Yes.”
“So one day I’m gonna have to take my son somewhere, and show him somethin horrible, somethin that terrifies him and takes the childhood right out of him, and lie to him that if he wants to run away and not help me fight it, then it’s okay.”
No reply was forthcoming. In a way that was his answer in itself, so Tony said nothing further.
The miles wore on. How many days and nights had they spent like this, driving from one end of Ireland to the other? How many hills and ruins and standing stones had he seen? By now he knew the Hill of Tara better than he knew some of the adjoining streets where he’d grown up.
“We’re getting close,” his father remarked, as they passed some nondescript landmark or other. Judging from the road signs they’d passed – those he’d been able to read with the meagre headlights this oul death-trap possessed, at any rate – they were somewhere in Armagh. Great. Two fellas in a car filled with melee weapons in the middle of Armagh in the dead of night; that didn’t look suspicious at all now did it? If the faeries didn’t get them, the Army probably would.
Folk'd Up Beyond All Recognition (FUBAR) Page 17