The Black Pool (Valhalla Book 3)

by Jennifer Willis

  “Yet you still saw them everywhere,” Freyr said.

  Eamon shrugged. “I just kept my head down and my nose in my school books.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t turn to drink,” Freyr said, barely audible over the noise of the van’s tires speeding along the highway. “Like so many others.”

  “There’s more than one in my family as have done that,” Eamon nodded.

  Sally looked at Eamon with sympathy. “I think I can understand where you’re coming from.”

  Eamon glanced at Thor and Freyr in turn, then looked out the window at black smoke wafting up from an overturned tractor in an abandoned field. “I’d imagine you would, at that.”

  “You may already know the River Liffey itself has its origins here in the Wicklow Mountains.” Eddie was back on the van’s PA system as he steered the vehicle through a tight switchback and drove higher into the mountains. “You’ll no doubt notice the magnificent waterfalls as we drive past. And don’t be worrying about opportunities for you shutterbugs. We’ll be stopping shortly once we arrive at a particularly lovely example of the falls of Wicklow, and its curiously close proximity to an old faerie ring, also called a faerie fort.”

  Sally looked out the window as the scenery flashed by. She searched for the waterfalls Eddie had promised, but saw only a few unimpressive trickles. Not like the Columbia River Gorge. Sally was suddenly homesick—for Portland, for her cat Baron and her friend Opal. Even for her parents.

  She felt a stab of guilt. She’d not been very good about keeping in touch with her parents since she’d arrived in Ireland. She kept missing their Skype calls and only occasionally responded to email. In truth, she’d been keeping her distance from them ever since she first started down her Norse path.

  The van sped by a more robust waterfall, and a glimmer of sunshine sparked a mini-rainbow in the surrounding mist. Every place has its own kind of magick. Sally smiled.

  She made another quiet promise to do better by her parents when she was back in Oregon. She might even try to explain her magickal adventures and who Odin and Frigga and the rest truly were. Eventually. But she’d been making—and breaking—that same promise for nearly two years.

  She shifted her thoughts to the Portland State course catalog, and how fun it would be to share an off-campus apartment with a real witch like Opal. Her parents liked Opal, so it would be an easy sell. Sally wondered if she could get a job at the bookstore with Saga, too.

  Assuming she made it back home.

  Eddie guided the van up the sharp grade of a smaller road.

  “Ah, yes, my good people,” Eddie’s voice crackled over the speakers. “We’re at the edge of the mystical lands now, where the faerie folk like to make their homes. How many of you have heard tell of the Little People or the Wee Folk of Ireland?”

  The Germans at the back raised their hands enthusiastically.

  “Yes! Me! Me!” Eva exclaimed with glee. She and Frederick laughed together. Thor was grateful she didn’t slap him again.

  “This is our first stop up ahead,” Eamon gestured toward a narrow gravel road. “This is where we might find the, the, uh . . .” He glanced back at the tourist couple.

  “The pooka,” Freyr offered. “What a pair of tourists decides to think about us is none of our business.”

  The van turned onto the gravel road, and the noise inside the vehicle doubled as the tires crunched into the loose rocks. The vehicle swayed as Eddie dodged a crater the size of a steamer trunk.

  “We’re very nearly there, ladies and gentlemen,” Eddie yelled into the handset. “Some experts might tell you the old faerie rings are merely ancient earthworks left over from the homesteads of some of Ireland’s earliest human residents. They say the circular shape outlining the base of the collective dwellings was easier to defend, with moats and fences to keep out strangers and keep in their precious livestock. There’s all manner of books and websites I could point you in the direction of if that’s the kind of explanation you’re interested in.”

  “Precisely why Niall wanted to go to school,” Eamon muttered. “To get the real history.”

  “What’s ‘real’ and what’s ‘supernatural’ aren’t always mutually exclusive,” Sally replied. “Or so I’ve been told.”

  “But at Red Top Tours, we like to offer a different take on what you’ll see here,” Eddie continued. He eased the van to the side of the narrow road, and Sally noted that any passing vehicle would have to bank at practically a 45-degree angle up the side of the mountain to clear the passenger van. But there were no other cars about.

  Eddie turned off the engine and shifted in his seat to face his passengers. “What we’ve got here is a very special faerie ring indeed.” He pointed toward a bend in the road where a waterfall was just barely visible. “The waterfall up this way is believed to be a pooka hole. Now, would you be knowing what a pooka is?”

  “The pooka lives here?” Clare looked up and down the road, straining to spot the young man in black who’d tricked her at the marketplace.

  “That’s right, miss,” Eddie replied with a generous smile, pleased to be entertaining his audience. “And you don’t want to be playing games with that dodgy lot of the Gentle Folk, now do you?”

  Clare turned to Sally. “In the waterfall?”

  “Now, don’t go be getting any ideas, young miss!” Eddie laughed. His face dimmed when he noticed that only the gleeful Germans at the back chuckled along with him. “What I mean to say is, the pookas are known to be mischievous and even dangerous creatures. There are citizens in these parts who won’t come near the faerie rings or the falls, for fear of encountering one of these fearsome creatures.” He paused with a dramatic frown to let his words sink in.

  Eamon sighed and offered Freyr an apologetic shrug.

  Then Eddie’s face brightened. “But you’ve nothing to fear here today with Eddie as your faithful guide!” Eddie slid out the driver’s door and came around the van to open the sliding door for his passengers. “Come on out now, and we’ll go exploring a bit!” he announced with a grin.

  Sally followed Eamon out of the van, with the others on her heels. Eddie was waving them forward to a large, raised ring in a tree-lined glade on the side of the road. Sally guessed the grass-covered circle was a hundred feet in diameter, with a central plateau rising about six feet off the ground.

  Eva and Frederick exclaimed in excitement. They pushed past Sally and anxiously dug into their backpacks for their cameras.

  “A wonderful example of a faerie fort in these parts,” Eddie called to his scattered passengers. “You wouldn’t want to be caught out here alone at night, though, I can tell you that much. Oh, no! It’s said the faeries are quite sensitive about trespassers, so we don’t want to get too close.”

  Eva smiled broadly and posed in front of the fort as Frederick snapped a few digital photos. She then threw an arm over Eddie’s shoulder and squeezed him close as Frederick kept taking pictures.

  “That much is true,” Eamon commented quietly to Sally. “Of course, this particular faerie fort also happens to be located on private property, which is the primary reason to keep tourists from climbing all over it.”

  She laughed, but then the hairs on the on the back of her neck stood on end. She looked up to the grassy plateau at the center of the faerie ring, and her jaw dropped open.

  An enormous black dog, fur matted and mangy, stared down at her with burning yellow eyes.

  Freya sat down on the orange-flowered love seat in Bria O’Shay’s cozy parlor. She was careful not to disturb the large, hand-crocheted doily draped across the back cushions.

  Niall settled an impressive tea service on the antique coffee table. He lifted the white-and-pink porcelain teapot. “Shall I pour?”

  “I think we can manage for ourselves, thanks,” Freya replied.

  Niall put down the pot and left the room to fetch his grandmother from the garden.

  Freya poured two cups of black tea and handed one to Heimdal
l, sitting in a sunken easy chair to her left. He reached for an orange-marmalade biscuit and dunked it in his cup.

  “Frigga would jump out of her skin with joy if she saw us taking tea right now.” He popped the cookie into his mouth.

  Freya laughed and sipped her tea. “Heimdall, I want you to know that I understand why you sent Freyr off with Thor today.”

  He took a large gulp from his cup. “I was hoping to be a bit more subtle.”

  Freya shook her head. “Your father gave you orders to keep an eye on us. After everything that’s happened, I probably would have separated us, too.”

  She looked out the window to the cottage’s back yard and watched as Niall helped his grandmother up the kitchen steps. Freya held her teacup close and inhaled the warm fragrance for comfort.

  “Confronting a pooka can be dangerous business,” she said.

  “I’m sure they can handle it,” Heimdall replied.

  Freya lifted the teapot to refill Heimdall’s cup.

  Heimdall looked her in the eye. “You’re still holding out on me. Don’t think I don’t know it.”

  “But do you know the stakes of the game you’re playing?” Bria O’Shay, matriarch of the O’Shay land healers, stood in the threshold and looked down on the Vanir and Æsir immortals in her parlor.

  She shuffled into the room, with Niall close behind. Once she’d settled into her rocking chair opposite Heimdall, she pointed a gnarled finger at Freya.

  “You only think you know what that crone is up to,” Bria said as her grandson poured her a cup of tea, added milk and sugar, and handed it to her. “Thank you, Niall.”

  Niall sat on a footstool near his grandmother’s rocker.

  Freya scooted to the edge of the love seat and sat up tall. “Can you tell us?”

  Bria shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way. I can tell you only what the land tells me.” She raised her cup to her lips and took a loud swallow. “And what the land is telling me isn’t good.”

  Heimdall sighed and sank deeper into the old chair. Freya supposed he had painful images of the Norns and their shrieking prophecies running through his head.

  “I apologize for my cousin,” Freya said. “He hasn’t had very good experiences with oracles.”

  “Cousin, is it?” Bria laughed. “And I’m no oracle. We’re more akin to peacekeepers, aiming to the maintain the balance of this island.”

  She looked over the top of her glasses at her grandson. Niall avoided her gaze and instead poured himself some tea and picked up a few biscuits.

  Freya folded her hands in her lap. “I’m afraid I don’t know quite where to begin. You see, we’ve come here to . . . I mean, I’m from here originally.”

  Bria waved a hand in the air. “I know quite well who you are. And I know that ancient witch in the old pool is your granny.”

  Heimdall started to object, but Bria cut him off. “And before you start getting your knickers in a twist, you should know I don’t take sides. Not in this, not in anything. That would be against our purpose.” She rocked slowly in her chair and sipped her tea. “Like I said, balance.”

  “Fine.” Freya relaxed her shoulders. She listened to the ticking of the grandfather clock in the narrow hallway beyond.

  Bria finished off her tea in a large slurp and handed the empty cup to Niall. She reached down into a bag beside her rocking chair and pulled out a half-finished Aran sweater on wooden needles. She tugged at the working strand of wool for slack, then set about her knitting.

  “But the balance could soon fail,” she spoke as she followed the sweater pattern from memory. “I can tell you that your gran has been quite busy, she has. I’ve heard the whispers of her messengers moving through the trees.”

  Heimdall leaned forward. “What is she planning? How can we stop her?”

  Bria pursed her lips and kept knitting. “That I cannot tell you. But I do know there are quite a few outside tribes standing ready for your peace to disintegrate.”

  Heimdall’s jaw tightened. “Which outsiders.”

  “Let’s see.” Bria paused a moment, then started moving her needles again. “There are the Saxon Attorcroppes and the Welsh Bwoganods, and the French Dracs of course. The Rhine River Loreli is awaiting word, but the real trouble can be found farther afield.”

  Bria tugged again on her yarn for more slack. “I’ve heard rumors of Asuras from the East and Pomberos from South America. Even the Aziza from the dark continent—”

  “Hel’s black wind!” Freya exclaimed and sank back into the love seat. She held one hand against her cheek. “The Æsir will be drastically outnumbered.”

  Bria clucked her tongue and kept rocking. “There’s great respect for your man, Odin. That still counts for something. But if the old lady has her way, I don’t imagine the ensuing conflict would be confined to Éireann for long.”

  Freya set her teacup down on the service tray. “What of my grandmother’s sisters?”

  Bria kept her eyes on her work. “What about them, Niall?”

  Niall shifted uncomfortably on the footstool. “I wouldn’t know what to say.”

  Bria gave him a stern look but never dropped a stitch or slowed her knitting work. “The other two sisters of The Morrigan haven’t been felt in these parts in many generations.”

  “My grandmother has been sleeping for a very long time,” Freya said. “Are you telling me that her sisters slumber as well?”

  Bria shrugged without looking up. “That’s the assumption I would make. The one on her own isn’t strong enough to wake them in her current state.” She glanced at Freya. “From what I’ve heard, at least. But I’d also say she’s gaining strength.”

  Freya nodded toward Niall. “We have something to show you.”

  Niall stood and pulled Clare’s faerie talisman from his jacket pocket. Bria put down her knitting as he handed it to her.

  Freya watched as Bria turned the charm over in her hands. Freya hadn’t dared touch the talisman herself. If the contents of its pouch really were connected to Badbh, and if just its nearness to Sally had been enough to raise the crone from her underground cauldron, there was no telling what might happen if the pouch came into physical contact with Badbh’s own descendant.

  “Hmph,” Bria pronounced, then shot her grandson another sharp glance. “It would have been easy enough to discern this object’s origin yourself if you hadn’t turned your back on your heritage.”

  “Right.” Niall sat back down with a heavy sigh. “But it’s not just me. Even Uncle Eamon found gainful employment working for that tour company.”

  Bria laughed without cheer. “Eamon? Those tours have him telling the same faerie tales as run through this family. He’s not so far out of the family business there, is he?”

  Heimdall lifted his hands in a placating gesture. “We don’t want to be the cause of any familial rifts here.”

  Bria looked across at the Norse immortal and cracked a smile. “That’s a choice remark, as you’re sitting in my parlor and asking my help to preserve your family peace.”

  “No, ma’am, that’s not what I meant.” Heimdall looked to Freya for help, but she had her gaze on Niall instead.

  “But you’ve got the gift, Niall,” Freya said. “And you’ve volunteered yourself to help us. Maybe you’re having second thoughts about turning away from your family’s traditional talent?”

  “No,” Niall protested. “No second thoughts.”

  Freya rested back into the cushions and cocked her head to one side. “I don’t think I’m the one you have to convince.”

  Bria smiled sideways at Freya as she loosened the binding on the talisman’s cloth pouch. As the wrapping came undone, she poured the contents into her open palm and gasped aloud.

  Freya and Heimdall leaned forward, but all they could see was a couple of tablespoons of dried weeds and tiny flowers.

  Bria’s old fingers pushed aside the grasses and plucked out a bead of translucent white stone the size of a blueberry.

/>   “Oh, my, my.” She held it out for Freya to study. “And would you be recognizing this little artifact?”

  Freya leaned forward and frowned at the polished stone. Bria turned it in her fingers, and Freya felt a sharp prickle at the base of her spine as the stone caught the sunlight coming in through the window.

  Freya’s eyes widened. “Natrolite?”

  “I’d say so,” Bria replied.

  “But how?” Freya asked.

  “That I do not know,” Bria said. “But if it’s that pooka that’s involved in this, I might have an idea.”

  Freya grasped Bria’s wrist. “Our friend, Sally. She went with Eamon to find the pooka. Is she in danger?”

  Niall perked up and looked at his grandmother.

  Bria narrowed her eyes, then glanced at Heimdall. “If she’s in the company of the Æsir?”

  “My brother, Thor.” Heimdall nodded toward Freya. “And her brother.”

  Bria laughed out loud. “That’s quite the combination! Tell me, how do they get along?”

  “What about Sally?” Niall demanded.

  Bria offered her grandson a gentle smile. “I would imagine she’s not directly in harm’s way, for the time being.” She turned back to Heimdall and Freya. “But you must be wary of the pooka and his kin. They betrayed their own kind and may yet be out to stir up more trouble.”

  Freya rose to her feet. “We’ve got to talk to them.”

  Heimdall was already pulling his cell phone from his pocket.

  Niall leaned close to Bria. “Gran, can you help us with this? Like you said, it’s more than just Éireann at stake. And Sally is my friend.”

  Bria shook her head and concentrated on moving the wool across her needles. “I’m an old woman, and it’s not for me to interfere.” She looked at him over the top of the sweater taking shape in her lap. “But you follow your own path, yes?”

  Niall clenched his jaw and looked up at Heimdall and Freya. Heimdall was tapping furiously on his phone’s keypad while Freya frowned over his shoulder.