Summer's End

by Lisa Morton

  I mention all this to explain why I’d done little more than scan Mongfind’s descriptions of various occult practices and ceremonies. And to offer some insight into my reaction when ó Cuinn said, “You should read the spells more carefully.”

  “Why?”

  “Because then you’d know about the one I’ve cast tonight.”

  I smirked. Perhaps it wasn’t polite, maybe it was rude and condescending, but I couldn’t avoid it. “You cast one of the spells in Mongfind’s manuscript?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hope it was something on how to brew beer.”

  He answered only by nodding at the covered window. “Pull up the blinds.”

  What the fuck?

  I almost refused. I almost got up and left, whatever was outside be damned. ó Cuinn was playing with me, and I’ve never been much for games.

  “Why should I?”

  “Because it’ll make the rest of what I have to tell you easier to believe.”

  Or it’ll give me the power to tell you, Conor, that I’m out of here and don’t want to hear from you again. I reached out and grabbed the cord that controlled the blinds and pulled.

  The blinds drew up—and beyond the glass, outside in the night, something was peering in at me. The face was so white the skin was slightly blue, the ears were long and with pointed tips poking up through lank, pale hair, and the corners of the thing’s grin reached all the way to the bottom of those ears. The teeth were jagged and sharp, the eyes red.

  It vanished almost instantly, but it’d been enough to send me up out of the chair and stumbling back. ó Cuinn leapt to his feet and moved behind me, whether to steady me or keep me from running I wasn’t sure.

  “It’s all right, it won’t hurt you,” he said.

  I turned to look at him. He was confident, even smug. “You’re going to tell me that was the spell…?”

  “Yes. I summoned the sidh.”

  “The sidh…” I’m sure my mouth must have fallen open for a second, in disbelief. An esteemed archaeologist was standing here, in a well-lit, modern office in the 21st century, trying to tell me that he’d performed an ancient magic ritual and had called down the sidh—the Little People, the Good Neighbors…fairies. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Then what did you hear outside? What did you see just now?”

  As I stared at him, his gaunt, stubbled cheeks and sunken eyes and shock of coal-colored hair, I wondered: What was he trying to do? Why had he tried to scare me? Was this about to become a pitch to finance some project of his? It wasn’t uncommon for people who only knew me through my work to assume that I was pagan; that I believed in the things I wrote fiction about. Was ó Cuinn pagan and thinking I was a fellow believer? Or had he thought maybe he could scam me?

  “What is it you want?”

  He looked genuinely perplexed (I wondered if he was just a good actor), then he said, “I want you to understand. It’s very important that you do.”

  “Understand what?”

  “What Mongfind has left us. What your role in this is.”

  Was he coming on to me? That notion forced me to stifle a shudder. “What if I say I don’t want a role in…whatever this is?”

  “You will, when you see what we have a chance to do. And you and I are the only ones who can do it, because we’re the last Druids.”

  Now this had taken on such epic proportions of lunacy that I openly laughed. “We’re Druids…you and I…”

  “Yes. Think of what a Druid was: Someone who studied Celtic ways for years, who stood apart because of the specialized knowledge they possessed, who could create something from nothing.”

  “If I could create something from nothing, I’d have a lot more zeroes on the amount in my checking account.”

  “What do you do whenever you write? What else is fiction but a form of magic?”

  That stopped me, because it was something that even I—the hard-bitten skeptic—believed. Even if I accepted that writing was just neurons in my brain firing, an immensely sophisticated organic computer transforming tiny electrical sparks into thoughts, thoughts that my fingers then translated into letters, it felt like magic, and I was the magician, creating (from nothing) whole worlds that would eventually be shared by others. Yes, writing was a form of magic, and a powerful one at that…but I wasn’t about to believe that my ability to tell stories somehow made me a priestess for a long-dead people.

  But Conor believed that. Absolutely and without question, he believed that he and I were Druids and that he (we) could perform spells that would create more than just words on paper. I had a moment then of pity for him; I could only imagine he must have been a lonely and lost man.

  I looked down at his left hand, and saw that he wore a simple gold band. “Are you married?”

  He blinked in surprise. “I was. My wife died three years ago. A rare form of cancer. We had six weeks after she was diagnosed.” He turned the laptop towards me so I could see the desktop photo, which showed a fair-haired young woman, a baby, and a Conor who was not just younger, but almost a completely different man, with a fuller face and bright, almost kind eyes. ó Cuinn had been hollowed out by grief.

  “You have a child?”

  He nodded, and the smile that touched his lips made me want to like him, despite my misgivings. “Alec. He’s five now; I brought him with me, to America. He’s in our temporary apartment just a mile from here, with a student I hired to help me look after him.”

  I started walking toward the door, letting him know I was done here. “Go spend time with your little boy. I don’t know why you’re trying to scare me—” He started to protest, but I cut him off, raising my voice as I went on, “—but we’re done. I don’t think you really need me for this project anyway.”

  I left and he didn’t stop me; but when I reached the hall, he stepped out behind me and called, “Try one of the spells yourself. That’s all I ask.”

  I stopped and turned, ready to respond with some quick sarcastic remark, but all I could manage was, “That’s crazy. Really. The Druids have been gone for fifteen hundred years, and they were really just tree-huggers, not magicians.”

  I walked out then. I’d convinced myself that Conor had some confederate who’d followed me before and who’d popped up outside the window. I hadn’t really seen the face for more than an instant, and it could have been a mask, or even a complete fake head. I knew whoever was working with him was probably still outside, but I’d be less polite if they tried to follow me again.

  Curious, though, I did walk to the point where Conor’s office window faced out, and tried to examine the area beneath it. There were bushes masking the ground and the brick wall, and the growth was certainly thick enough to conceal someone crouching down. “Oh, and by the way—fuck you, too,” I said, before turning to walk away.

  I made it back to my car without incident and drove home still percolating with anger. By the time I crawled into bed, I’d decided that in the morning I would call Wilson Armitage and talk to him about Conor ó Cuinn.

  October 23

  -

  October 24

  When I called Dr. Armitage’s office in the morning, a male voice I didn’t recognize answered. “Yes?”

  “Hi, this is Lisa Morton calling for Dr. Armitage.”

  “What did you need to speak to him about?”

  Something about the voice was wrong—it was too gruff, too harsh to belong to anyone who worked at a university. “I was consulting with him on a project.”

  “Well, Ms. Morton, I’m afraid I have some bad news: Dr. Armitage is dead. My name’s Lieutenant John Bertocelli, and I’m investigating his death.”

  Oh god. “How did he die?”

  “He was found here on campus last night. It looks like he was attacked by some sort of wild animal, but we’re not ruling out murder yet.”

  Wild animal…maybe something with a too-wide mouthful of jagged fangs, something that moved unseen through the night…

  A
nd I’d been there. If they found that out, would I be a suspect? Would it look better for me if I told them now? “I was at the campus last night.”

  “What time would that have been?”

  “I came to talk to Dr. Armitage’s associate Conor ó Cuinn. I was there from about eight-thirty to not quite nine.”

  “We think that’s about the time Dr. Armitage was killed.”

  “Something followed me last night.”

  There was a pause, and I imagined the detective waving his partner over, or grabbing a notepad. “You mean something followed you last night while you were on the school grounds?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t see it?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. If you’d gotten a look at it, you’d probably be dead today instead of Dr. Armitage.” He asked a few more brief questions, then took my contact information and hung up.

  After several seconds of just sitting, staring, and wondering if Conor had killed him, I googled UCLA news and found a brief mention on a local news website of Armitage’s death. It didn’t add much to what I’d already heard from Lt. Bertocelli—that he’d been found dead outside Haines Hall late last night, his body mauled and covered with what looked like bite marks.

  That could have been me.

  Maybe I’d been wrong about the face I’d seen outside the window. Maybe it’d been an animal; a mountain lion? A maddened, injured dog? Yet Conor had known it was there.

  Had Conor meant to kill Wilson Armitage? Why?

  I was interviewed by Lt. Bertocelli a day later, in an ugly little office with scratched furniture and sickly-green walls in a Westside police station. They told me they were still leaning toward wild animal attack, but they had some questions…mainly about Dr. Conor ó Cuinn. Apparently he and Armitage had argued earlier in the day, about something to do with what was now being called “the Celtic manuscript.” Students who’d overheard the confrontation mentioned a loud “Yes, I do intend to try it,” in Conor’s accent, to which Armitage responded, “You can’t be serious.”

  The fact that I’d been with ó Cuinn at the time of Wilson’s death—it’d been put fairly precisely at 8:40—ruled him out as a suspect. And they told me repeatedly I was not a suspect.

  They also said they might have more questions.

  That night, a mountain lion was spotted in wealthy Bel Air, just to the north of the UCLA campus. It happens sometimes—predators are driven down out of the few remaining patches of Southern California wilderness by hunger, thirst, wildfires…maybe loneliness. In another few hours, the story would probably end the way these stories always did: Some cop would claim his dart gun had jammed, and he’d just kill the poor cat instead. Meanwhile, we’d all know: That the cop, when faced with a 140-pound, yellow-eyed carnivore, had reacted on the most primeval level possible, that his every instinct had said “Kill or die,” and he’d opted for the gun that he knew would put the beast down permanently. An armed caveman.

  The news was already speculating that the big cat had savaged Wilson Armitage. Bel Air was within (human) walking distance of UCLA, separated only by Sunset Boulevard. It might provide a convenient close to the case.

  But I knew a mountain lion was not what I’d heard following me. And it certainly wasn’t the grinning, red-eyed specter I’d seen outside ó Cuinn’s window.

  October 27

  Soon, I was too busy to think much more about Wilson Armitage and Conor ó Cuinn. I had signings to attend, interviews to give, and blog posts to write for friends. There were Halloween haunts to visit, decorations to photograph, and stores to shop in. I have a soft spot for cheap, completely useless Halloween kitsch that makes me laugh. I imagine the laborers at the manufacturing plant in China slaving over miniature Halloween skateboards and goblin finger puppets, and thinking that all Americans must surely be mad.

  Then an e-mail arrived, with a generic name from a Gmail account. I almost dismissed it instantly as spam, but the subject heading read “Samhain query.”

  Don’t open it, was my first thought.

  But of course I did open it.

  It was from Conor ó Cuinn. The gmail account suggested he was probably still under suspicion, and had sent this from some public computer. It was a simple message:

  “Scroll to page 147 in Armitage’s translation. Read the next ten pages. And remember what I said about us being the last Druids.”

  I wanted to delete it and forget about it. I considered telling o’Cuinn not to contact me again. Maybe I should send it to my new detective friend Bertolucci.

  Instead, I opened the Mongfind translation file.

  Page 147 started by recounting the moment when the Celts realized their new Catholic friends were actually an invasion force, bent on conquest. The initial attacks took out many in the warrior caste; the survivors were trying to rally their forces. And so they called on Mongfind:

  I saw our dead, our dying, our wounded. These men had now revealed that they came with no purpose other than to slay us and subjugate us. My people turned to their Arch-Druids—Mog Roith and I—in this hour of need.

  I sought out Mog Roith, and yet he was nowhere to be found. Our path was clear: we had to invoke the Dagda and the Morrigan and take them within ourselves. Only they would be powerful enough to lead the opposition.

  We searched quickly, but came to believe that Mog Roith must already be dead, although he had not been found among the corpses yet. Finally, we could tarry no longer—we had to hope the Morrigan alone would be enough.

  And so, protected by a ring of our strongest remaining warriors, I performed the ritual to call forth the Morrigan. Fortunately, the year was close to Samhain, and the Morrigan was near at this time.

  She answered my summons, and filled me. Her power! Her strength, her resolution gave me fresh hope. Sharing your body with a god is one of the most ecstatic experiences for any Druid; it is neither possession nor loss, but is instead a bonding that exceeds anything experienced by ordinary men and women. It is one of the ultimate rewards to the years of training and learning the Druid must undergo. It is among the holiest of our rites, and may be practiced only by the male and female Arch-Druids.

  The invocation was accomplished quickly and successfully. The Morrigan, instantly awake and aware within me, began issuing orders to our soldiers. Then she took a spear and shield, and led them to the battlefield.

  I felt everything with her, as we cut a bloody swath through the opposing troops. Our speed and skill were unmatched. The first row of enemies went down beneath spear thrusts and a shield wielded as a second weapon. Gore soaked us; we shook it from our eyes and kept going, bloodlust increasing our power. We raged through their ranks, and behind us the Celtic warriors were renewed, screaming their battle cries. The invaders began to panic; many tried to run, only to collide with their comrades behind them. Our shield sprouted arrows like deadly quills, but nothing could harm us. We were invincible. We would win.

  Eire would remain ours forever.

  But then the enemy forces began to scatter for another reason—something was coming up from behind them, something they wanted to let through. The Morrigan and I sensed an intelligence approaching, familiar and usually welcomed…

  The last of their rows parted, and Mog Roith stepped through; Mog is blind, but because he moved among the soldiers easily, I knew that the Dagda had joined him and given him sight.

  “Mongfind,” he said—except “Morrigan” impossibly came from his mouth at the same time—“we must cease this fighting.”

  I felt the Morrigan’s disbelief surge through me, and I shared it. The Dagda and the Morrigan were the great defenders of Eire; they’d fought against Fomorians and sidh, they were the most valorous warriors of the Tuatha de Danaan. The Dagda would never call for an end to defending our land.

  “No,” the Morrigan and I answered, “we must drive them out.”

  Mog Roith smiled, sadly…and then raised the great club he held and brought it
down on our head.

  When I awakened, a day later, the Morrigan was gone, I was bound and gagged in a dank cell, and I knew the invaders had won.

  Eire was theirs.

  Mog Roith had betrayed us. He had summoned the Dagda and then used the god’s power against us. I never found out why, I never knew what the Catholics and their God could possibly have offered. I did find out that shortly after he bludgeoned me, he staggered from the battlefield to an oak grove, took a sacred knife and slit his own throat. Or, likely, the furious Dagda took over and repaid Mog Roith’s betrayal. One may partner with the gods, but one cannot betray them and expect the forged bond not to shatter.

  I’d read this account earlier, but hadn’t really looked at what followed it: Instructions for performing the ritual to invoke the spirit of the Morrigan. It was a comparatively simple procedure, requiring none of the paraphernalia (a rod made of ash, a wand fashioned from an oak twig) of most of the other spells I’d glanced at. Fasting was suggested, but I knew Mongfind had performed it successfully without that; the rest consisted of assuming a posture known as the Heron Stance, and meditating while inciting an invocation. It reiterated that only a female Arch-Druid could successfully invoke the Morrigan.

  I had no idea why ó Cuinn wanted me to read this passage. Yes, the account of Mongfind laying into her Catholic enemies while possessed by a goddess was stirring fiction, but what did any of this have to do with me? Did ó Cuinn actually believe that he and I were Arch-Druids?

  I tried to focus on writing an article I had promised an online news site, but my thoughts kept circling back to ó Cuinn’s suggestion. It was ludicrous; the thought of me standing in the middle of my living room floor, one foot braced against the opposite knee, trying to keep my balance while reciting words that sounded like a Lewis Carroll poem…I couldn’t foresee that ending with anything but me collapsing onto the carpet, cursing my own innate clumsiness.

  Still…what could it hurt? It wasn’t as if this ritual required the sacrifice of a child, or even a blood oath. Fifteen minutes of my time, and it might be an interesting experiment; perhaps it would help me to understand, at least in some small part, how ecstatic states could be reached in shamanistic practices. Maybe I’d feel a little of what Mongfind had felt, nearly two millennia ago. Maybe I’d understand how she could have possibly believed that she’d been in communion with a goddess.