No Time to Cry (Nine While Nine Legacy Book 1)

by Stasia Morineaux

  He’s my protector. I let him lead me.

  We emerge from the forest into a beautiful clearing. It’s peaceful here.

  I don’t have to fear the Dark Ones here.

  I walk Eyvindur across a meadow and toward a lovely home that seems to be built into the side of a huge tree. As we get closer I can see that it most definitely is. The roots are as tall as the door, which as I dismount from my horse and walk towards I can unmistakably see is the size of any normal door in my land.

  My land?

  Ivy grows up one side of the front and over the doorway reaching towards the partially peaked roof. The tree/house is larger around than the apartment in which I currently live. Paned glass windows stagger up the front at differing levels, and bricks outline the first floor window and front door, which is painted a deep hunter green.

  It’s a place of magic, I can feel it, thrumming through the air towards me, wrapping around me as if to check out my status of worthiness to approach.

  The feeling recedes and I move forward. I see steps to the right of the door, stairs that have been carved into the flesh of the tree itself that wind around and to the back, I suppose reaching up to the “roof” of the house, which is a cut-away portion, where a good sized share of tree is missing up there. I wonder briefly what happened to that part of the tree, lightning perhaps.

  Another forest begins not far behind this home/tree. I feel compelled to walk up the stairs, make my way to the ‘rooftop’.

  It’s beautiful up here. There is a table strewn with books and colorful bottles, bright little jars, and implements of all sorts. There is a kettle…no a cauldron, but no fire. Wait, yes there is…it’s just very low. How can you have a fire on top of a tree without it burning down? Strange.

  I’m curious about the books, I want to open them and read them all, glean all the information from inside their covers. I know its stuff I should already know.

  I reach to pick up the one closest to me on a small bench, resting there as if someone had very recently been reading it and set it down for a bit.

  “Oh no…none of that yet. In time though.” A voice cuts through my reverie.

  I turn to set eyes on a smallish woman, of indeterminate age. But her eyes are wise. And that feeling of magic that I felt before is here now. It’s with her.

  She’s on the slight side, narrow, shorter than me…but I’m five-foot-nine-inches, so most women are shorter to me. I would guess maybe five-foot-five. Her hair is grey, no it’s silver, at the temples and reaches down to nearly her waist.

  I watch as she gathers it into both hands and after only a few deft movements of her fingers has it all piled atop her head. It’s messy and yet seems stately.

  “Come, sit with me. We have some catching up to do.”

  Catching up? I’ve never seen this woman…or have I?

  “Can you tell me why I’m different? I’m not like the others in the Bháis. Can you tell me what’s wrong with me?”

  “Oh, Lómhara,” she laughs sweetly, kindness laces through it, seeps into me, “there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just as you should be right now. In fact, you’re very strong. You’re awakening is coming along splendidly.”

  “My awakening?”

  “Oh, the things I could tell you, so many wonderful things,” she claps her hands together joyfully, “but that’s up to Gideon.” She pats my hand endearingly. “Soon enough he’ll tell you everything. Some of it he knows nothing of yet.” She clasps both of my hands in hers. “Such exciting things are on the way. Oh, to see the look on his face when he learns it all.”

  “What? Don’t tease me like that, just tell me please. I’m a knotted up mess over all of this…Gideon has no answers for me, he tells me so little. What are the dreams? What is that voice? Whose voice is it? What do the words mean?”

  “Shhhh…” She pats my hand again. “All in time. Gideon will tell you. He’s a good one that one.”

  She rises from her spot and rummages through items on a table nearby—rifling through loose parchments and shifting bottles and jars, as if searching for something in particular.

  “And a good match for you.” She adds.

  I’m stunned speechless. So, I just watch her glide around her rooftop doing her thing.

  “Now look at this! The cakes are ready. We must have tea and cakes. I do make the tastiest cakes on this side of the realm…even the Queen herself says so!” She declares with pride and smiles brightly as she putters about readying tea.

  She sets the cups and plates in front of us and pours tea, then gingerly places the most fragrantly delicious treats in front of me.

  “Oh please, help yourself. There’s just…one…thing…” she wriggles her fingers about in front of her, “if I can just recall…where…” She pokes around through a small bookcase off to our right that is built into the tree. “Ah ha! I knew I couldn’t have lost it. Much too important.” She ambles back over to the table. “And I’ve been waiting to give it to you.” She laughs lightly. “Wouldn’t do us any good at all if I misplaced this little lovely…no, not at all.”

  She sits down and sips from her cup, makes a face, and then pours a liquid of the deepest amber into her tea. It’s thicker and darker than honey, it smells heavenly.

  “Mmmmm…that’s better. You must…shall you?” She offers the treacle like substance. I shrug. “Makes it ever so tastier.”

  “Alright.” I agree and she dribbles a good amount in. I watch as it swirls itself into the hot cup of tea.

  “Go ahead duck, give it a try.”

  I pick up the beautiful cup gently. It looks hand crafted and very delicate. I blow steam away from the liquid and sample a small taste. It is amazing. Indescribably delicious. Soothing, calming as it rolls over my tongue. Rich and yet mildly sweet, nothing like sugar or honey, it is like nothing I’d ever had.

  “Oh yes, before I forget. This. You must have this.” She takes hold of my empty hand and presses a pendant into my palm, folding my fingers snugly over it. “You keep this with you…always. Don’t let it go. Don’t take it off, once you put it on. In fact, you make sure Gideon clasps that on you well.”

  “Gideon? Why him?”

  “It’s just the way it is, love.”

  I sit my cup down, opening my hand, and gaze down at the pendant. It’s silver, maybe. It looks like silver, but it glows from within, as if lit with moonlight. It’s intricately fashioned, it looks to be of Celtic design—or something akin to it—with intricate knot work. Two ravens face each other, within their talons, is a triskele. A triskele?

  How do I know that word?

  Beneath that is a cabochon stone, clear in color, but not glassy or diamond like, nor crystal. It is like water, like the most perfect water is encapsulated beneath the stone’s surface.

  The inside of the stone seems to shimmer and move like ripples or tiny waves on an ocean or lake. But the color shifts between every shade from clear to cerulean.

  “Oh,” I breathe, dazzled by it. “I couldn’t. It’s too perfect.”

  “Stuff and nonsense. You must. It’s meant for you. It was made for you. Now tuck it away safe.” She waves her hand at me as if to end the discussion. Her voice echoes those words in my head as I tuck the necklace away into my coat pocket.

  ~Made for you~

  When I look up I’m no longer on the rooftop of the house in the tree, nor am I with the mysterious woman.

  ~Uldwynah~

  That voice whispers through my head. Her name is Uldwynah. How unusual. How very pretty, and powerful. How do I know that? She hadn’t said that.

  I find myself now in a beautiful—I think it may be a ballroom—with candle filled chandeliers lighting the room, an expansive marble floor, arched doorways, and matching arched mirrors. The room is grand, opulent…mystifying.

  Music is playing distantly. It’s instrumental, no voices, it sounds something like Dead Can Dance—but it’s not—it’s haunting and hypnotic and ambient as they are…it reminds me o
f Gideon. It makes me feel like dancing. It makes me feel like dancing with Gideon. I feel like twirling and spinning and gliding across the glossy floor. I find myself twirling and spinning and gliding across the glossy floor. I feel light, effervescently, ethereally, light and content.

  At the far end of this room I spot a desk, it may have been carved of stone, I can’t quite tell from where I stand, and the fact that my head is a little dizzy from all the dancing, but the desk top looks to be resting atop two carved dragons, or perhaps they are griffins. It’s amazing.

  I’m in front of one of the large vaulted mirrors. I study my reflection. My new reflection. My eyes are spectacular. They glitter and glow from within, very much like the stone in the pendant. I am vibrant. I am life.

  I notice something on my arm, on my reflected self; it’s a dark image in shades of gunmetal grey. I look down at my actual arm and there is nothing there. But when I look at my reflection it is quite certainly there, very bold. I watch the reflected me run her hand over the mark and I shake, ice trickling over my flesh…because the me standing here on this side of the mirror had not moved. I watch the mirror me, her mark—her tattoo—as it begins to glimmer. My arm, on this side of the silvered glass begins to warm and then tingle. I glance down, not wanting to take my eyes from that other me, and the mark is now on my arm. I jump back a step, startled, shocked really. I smooth my hand over the mark lightly, it still feels warm. It doesn’t hurt the way I would think a tattoo should. It feels good, right actually. It does feel kind of stingy, but in a good way…like I can’t quite describe.

  As if it was always meant to be there, and I’m happy it finally is.

  It’s beautiful. An altered fleur de lys, the stem of the fleur has been elongated, like a staff.

  I look back up to see the me in the mirror, but the surface is now shimmering and rippling gently, just as the stone in the necklace had done. I move closer to the glass, it begins to waver more quickly and brightens. I feel lightheaded, this time not from spinning across the ballroom floor. This was like I had felt in the café, right before…

  ~Milseachd~

  There it is. That whisper, again, that mesmerizing voice. And here I go crumbling to the floor, reaching out to the mirror, my newly tattooed arm stretching out to steady myself, to stop my fall to the ground.

  My hand sinks through the surface. The reflection of the room fades. A midnight forest now lies beyond. I can just barely make out the trees in the velvety darkness, lights floating and bobbing among them.

  As my descent completes to the floor, my arm follows my body and drops from the mirror. I glance up at the shuddering surface. It is just a mirror again. The reflection mirrors me perfectly, sprawled on the cool marble surface. My reflected arm is still adorned with the brilliant tattoo…so is my actual arm.

  ~ Chapter Twenty ~

  We had a double cull scheduled. Of course we did.

  Upon waking I searched my arm immediately. There was no tattoo, silly me, of course there wasn’t. It was only a dream. A strange dream, but only a dream.

  So as if being so not thrilled about a double cull was not enough, when I peeped through the peep hole of my front door I was greeted with the visage of Liam, not Gideon as I’d figured I would be, but Liam. Instead I was treated to Liam’s curt face. His expression screamed of not wanting to be there.

  Standing beside him was Michael. At least it was not Halah.

  I wondered briefly as I opened the door to leave, if he was there to act as a mediator of sorts, a buffer…to keep us from fighting. Or from other things. Or maybe he was there to make sure I performed my cull completely. Or maybe to pick me up and bring me home if I passed out again, because I had my doubts as to whether or not Liam would. He would probably leave me wherever we happened to be at the time.

  We had no Lanmhuchadh with us; whoever was up for this cull must be coming along later.

  Michael walked between us. Liam did not speak to me. I was pondering if that was a good thing or not. The first cull was to be a simple one, and mine, all mine—as Liam so kindly didn’t mind pointing out to me more than once. It was also one in which I had chosen in advance to not stick around to witness the after math of. Get in, get out. Done deal. That was my motto.

  As we walked down the street of one of the nearby neighborhoods, I admired the houses—Halloween decorations already in place at some—and the fall colors bursting like fire in the trees. The steady misting had ceased, but the air remained crisp.

  When we approached the house I felt a tingling grow up my spine, reach from the center of my chest and spread through my limbs. Finally reaching my head, where it circled inside and then ran a course back down to my heart. I braced myself for the dizziness to descend on me…but nothing…it didn’t happen.

  What the hell had that been? It left me awake, and as if everything about me was fine tuned. I had no doubt I could do this, with absolute perfection, with steely coolness, and with no vertigo-like symptoms ending with me slumped in a heap on the floor.

  I was ready.

  At the door of the appointed house, I watched as Michael raised his hand, I thought to knock…but then again, does Death knock? I didn’t think so, and I was correct.

  He instead muttered a word, of course one I didn’t know. It was that other language. I watched the air in front of the door shake, quiver…kind of like the way a water mirage on the highway does. But this was no mirage. The door became flimsy looking, wavered in its solidity, and Michael walked into the home. He grasped my hand and pulled me through, Liam followed.

  I spun and looked at the rear side of the door. It quivered for only a moment longer and then looked normal, solid again.

  I touched it lightly with my hand, ran it across its surface. Completely solid.

  That had been pretty cool. It reminded me of the mirror in my dream. I’d have to ask Michael to teach me that word.

  “He’s all yours,” Michael spoke softly to me.

  For the barest moment I thought he meant Liam. Stupidly I looked at Liam, who was looking at me with a blend of desire and hatred. Wonderful.

  I realized my mistake and let my eyes search the dimly lit room instead of his face.

  I saw a sight that was quickly becoming familiar to me; the faint blue-black haze that surrounded each of my culls so far. He was passed out cold in front of a flat screen TV, reclined back in his lounger; beer bottles littered the floor around him and across the end table.

  As I neared him I studied his face. He was out cold…and would never wake. I briefly wondered if anyone else lived with him. Would anyone be walking through that door anytime soon? Interrupting the cull? I saw no pictures on the walls or the mantle.

  My head tilted as I scrutinized him. This reminded me a little too much like my own death. Passed out and all. I felt anger fill me, race through every cell, turn my brain to fire. I felt ice at the same time, racing the fire.

  I wanted out of here, to be done for the day, done with this.

  I felt the ice glaze over the fire in my skull, felt it travel through me, through my veins, through my cells. It wasn’t cold, it was soothing and precise, and as it should be.

  I put my hand on the man’s arm. I spoke the word Gideon had taught me. And let go.

  It was fast. Immediate. I saw a flicker around him, the air just scant millimeters above his flesh rippled and surged. I had not noticed that at the café yesterday. Strange. This was different.

  I backed away. The movement stopped and there next to the man was his mhésen. As if the flesh had birthed it. Now to find the Ingress, get him through it, and be on my way. The next cull was Liam’s. He could manage it without me just fine.

  The mhésen approached me. I stepped back—this part was new to me, I had not interacted with a mhésen yet—and his advance faltered.

  “Don’t confuse him,” Liam said harshly. “You’re supposed to guide it, be the escort. Do your job.”

  I shot him a look of contempt. Why was he being such a di
ck?

  I would’ve asked him, but I didn’t want to bother with it really, or waste my time on it.

  I felt that coolness inside my body, that assuredness, that something that I could only identify as that whatever that wanted to take over, that made me know things that I could not possibly know because no one had told me; and I knew how this was to be done, the better way to do it.

  I walked closer to the mhésen, held my hand out. Spoke to him with my eyes, my heart, my ‘whateverness’ that resided in me now, smiled with it, letting him know without a single word that it was going to be alright.

  I felt warmth radiating from across the room, like a heater just turned on to chase the winter chill away. I turned my head to the heat, it was the Ingress.

  It glowed like embers in an inglenook, warm, gentle, inviting.

  I took the mhésen by his hand and led him to it. Again wondering what lay beyond. What would happen if I went through it, where did it go?

  The mhésen gave me a wide smile and walked through. And then it was gone, as quickly as it had appeared.

  “Hey, she did it,” Liam said sarcastically.

  Really though, why was he being so cold and mean? Why was he being this much of an ass? Even if I couldn’t be with him, we couldn’t be together, was it really necessary to be so mean? It had not been my decision. I’d been very clear as to how I felt about him. And yes, I’d messed up at my first cull, but so had he.

  “So, I mucked up my first one Liam, get over it,” I snapped. “It’s not as though you were much help in teaching me, in my opinion you screwed up far worse than I did, you did not tell me the word. Where did your kindness go? You were so nice to me before.” I pushed past him, past Michael who was saying something to try to diffuse the situation.

  “Céimnithe ar Shiúl,” I seethed from between gritted teeth, and from pained heart.