by Lizzy Prince
It felt wrong to make plans for when we would be back home because we had such a daunting task in front of us. It seemed like an impossibility that we would be able to bind Hattie’s magic and just live happily ever after and have our real, normal lives back. But I couldn’t say all of that out loud. Instead, I turned back to look out the window as we would our way through the glowing hills of Ireland.
Chapter 2
There were several cars parked in a small lot when we arrived at the Hill of Tara. There were a good number of tourists roaming around, walking over the landscape and taking pictures of the stunning emerald views that the site offered up.
Everyone piled out of the van like we’d been jammed in a clown car, and I saw at least one woman nearby who raised an eyebrow in surprise when we just kept coming. Once freed, I groaned with relief to finally be standing and stretching my legs. It was chilly out, but I’d been sweating in the back of the car, so being out in the brisk air felt incredible. I breathed deeply and inhaled the scent of fresh grass, nearby farm animals, and the subtle hint of rain in the air. Looking up, I saw some of the perfect white clouds had shifted into gray monsters threatening to burst onto all of us at any moment.
Munro had shared some tips with me on how to block my magic from influencing the weather. He’d explained it like a steel safe in my mind. I would take that little bit of magic that I didn’t want to use, in this case making it rain or snow based on my emotions, and shut it in the safe until I was ready to use it. At that point, I could unlock my mental safe and wreak havoc on the weather. I could actually sense my magic tucked away, so I knew I wasn’t the reason for the overcast sky, most likely it was just because it was December in Ireland. Still, I couldn’t help but check. I was still getting the hang of controlling my magic and all of the things it could do.
There was a little cafe and gift shop near where we’d parked but otherwise it was just open countryside. A few people that were milling around were following a tour guide, and I stepped closer to try to hear what she was saying without appearing too obvious that I was lurking.
“This is the Mound of Hostages.” She pointed to a small grass covered mound that looked like a perfectly round little hill. “This is a burial passage that was built over 5000 years ago. This passage was built so that on Samhain and Imbolc, which are celebrations of the coming of winter and spring, the light from the sun will hit the doorway of the mound and illuminate the entire passage.
“Our neighboring monolith, New Grange…” The tour guide gestured to a point in the distance as though we should all be able to see what she was pointing at. “Has a larger burial passage that lights on the summer and winter solstice, which happens to be today,” she finished cheerfully as if we should all be excited by this, then leaned in closer to everyone, like she had a secret to share.
“A lot of people believe that the veil between worlds is thinner on the solstice. So be on the lookout for fairies, everyone.” The tour guide tittered, and a few of the tourists smiled, charmed by the idea, but I just felt a sinking in my stomach, thinking about what Ryan had said earlier. This just meant that Hattie had access to more magic.
Granted, it was amazing that this kind of engineering existed over 5,000 years ago, but I was definitely not pleased by the idea of the thin places being thinner and access to magic being that much easier today.
I turned from the small cluster of tourists who were wandering over to the Mound of Hostages and searched for the rest of my group. I found Munro looking out across the landscape and moved to stand by his side.
“It’s incredibly beautiful here,” I said, and he started a little as though my voice had jolted him from his thoughts. He turned his beautiful smile on me, and I wanted to melt into him. Somehow knowing I needed the contact, he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in close so I was nestled against his chest. I wrapped my arms around his waist, feeling like it was completely natural, even though I wouldn’t have dared to touch him with this sort of easy comfort a mere week ago. There was something about our magical bond that made me drop the pretenses and games. I needed him and wanted to comfort him as much as I needed him to comfort me. It was as simple as that, and I didn’t want to pretend any longer that I didn’t need him.
“I love it here. It will always be home even when I live somewhere else,” he said into my hair as he rested his chin on my head.
“I can understand why,” was all I said, and I did understand. There was something magical in the air here, a feeling of homecoming and welcome that permeated the atmosphere around us. Reluctantly, I asked about the stone. “Where is the coronation stone?”
Munro lifted his chin from my head and turned me slightly so I could see it. It was smaller than I thought it would be and sort of, ahem, phallic. Munro must have interpreted the look on my face because his chest rumbled with a chuckle I could feel before I heard it.
“What are you thinking about?”
“What do you think I’m thinking about?” I volleyed back as I narrowed my eyes at him, trying and failing to hide the amusement in my voice.
“Let’s go get a closer look,” he deflected but chuckled as he grabbed my hand and pulled us toward the stone. My fingers were chilly, but the warmth from his hand soaked into me and just that small bit of contact made me feel like I’d been enfolded in a security blanket.
Everyone else from our band of misfits was already at the stone and looking at it like it was a puzzle they didn’t know how to solve. The closer we got to the stone, the more I felt a buzz pulsing from the ground beneath us, almost like we were standing too close to a powerline.
“Does everyone else feel that?” I asked, slightly terrified by the ripple of power coming from the stone and hoping I wasn’t the only who could feel it.
There was a chorus of yes, yep, uh huh, and a “feel what?” from Theo whose non-magical ability must have kept him from sensing it.
“There’s a buzz kind of like electricity coming from this spot,” I replied, and the look on Theo’s face said it all. It said oh for Christ’s sake like no words ever could.
“I’m pretty much onboard with the idea that this isn’t a legend. She’s buried here,” I said, for some reason not wanting to say her name out loud. I felt like if I said Cailleach, it would be like saying Bloody Mary in the mirror—or Beetlejuice.
Everyone nodded in agreement, and we must have looked like a bunch of crazies staring at the coronation stone with varying levels of wariness and fear. Our group moved like one entity as the tour guide headed toward us with her entranced batch of tourists. We made our way back to our van and lingered around the parking lot, no one all that anxious to get back in our tin-can clown car. But Ryan was like our cruise director on the weirdest ship ever, because he decided our next steps and dictated them to us with authority.
“Let’s go get something to eat. I’m sure everyone is hungry and thirsty. We’ll head back here after dark and wait for Hattie.”
With resigned groans, everyone climbed back into the van, Mari and I contorting our bodies to squeeze back into the third row once again. After everyone settled, Ryan drove us to a nearby town and found a spot to leave the car. We wandered down the street until we found a pub called the Hill and Stone. No one seemed to have any strong preferences besides getting out of the increasingly windy street, so Theo declared that it was the winner by default because it was the first place to eat that we’d found.
Entering the pub, I had to bite my lip to keep my delight from escaping in the form of a squeal. There was a reason things were quintessentially something; it didn’t just happen on accident, and this pub was everything I would have imagined an Irish pub to be. It wasn’t overly large, but big enough for a mahogany bar that sat in the middle of the room with small tables on either side providing additional seating. The back wall was a cobbled stone made of various sizes and shades of gray. There was a fireplace against another wall, with a fire gently snapping and glowing, giving off heat and the homey sme
ll of burning wood. In one of the corners sat two teenagers, one playing the fiddle and another with a guitar. They were playing some mournful song that made my heart ache because it was so beautiful.
I realized everyone else had moved over to a set of tables while I’d been standing at the doorway soaking in everything around me. Munro was gazing at me with a raised eyebrow, but I just grinned at him and walked over to the table, taking a seat by his side. Once I was seated, Munro’s hand settled on my thigh, and the warmth soaked into my body until even my cheeks were flushed with it.
“You alright?” He looked at me questioningly.
Not sure what had gotten into me, I leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss against his lips. His free hand came up to stroke my jaw and tangled in my windblown hair for a moment before he pulled back to look at me, a sparkle in his eye. “What was that for?”
“Just because,” I said quietly, completely aware that everyone at the table was pretending not to look at us or listen to our conversation. Leaning in a bit closer to his ear to whisper so that only he could hear, I spoke quietly, “There’s something about this place.”
I sighed and sat back shrugging. I didn’t know if I could explain it with words. At least, not adequately. Munro gave my thigh a gentle squeeze, and I saw him smiling at me out of the corner of my eye.
We put in our order and heaping plates of roast chicken, potatoes, shepherd's pie, some amazing smelling stew and a loaf of soda bread appeared and weighed down the table. Everyone dug in family style, grabbing a little bit of whatever they could get their hands on. We looked a little bit like a pack of wolves that hadn’t eaten in a week. When I stopped to think about it, all I’d really eaten in the last twelve hours was some awful airline food. Now that I was smelling all of the amazing food in front of me, my stomach was growling angrily and demanding I feed it.
“My gran makes the best stew. I’ll have her make it for us when we go see her.”
For a moment, I was stunned speechless. I was not sure why it didn’t occur to me that we would go see Munro’s grandmother while we were here. I mean, why wouldn’t we? She was only a few hours away instead of a whole continent. But it made nervous butterflies take flight in my stomach at the thought. I’d never really had the experience of someone taking me home to meet the parents. And in this case, Munro’s grandmother was probably the closest to that scenario that we’d get. Even though Ryan was his guardian, I’d met him before anything had ever happened with Munro, and he’d become a part of my life because of our intertwined history. I wasn’t even going to consider Hattie a parent, because she essentially wasn’t. She’d never been.
“Okay,” I ended up saying quietly when Munro looked at me after I spent too much time lost in my thoughts.
Munro just smiled at me before he turned back to the table. He looked at his watch, which he’d obviously reset for the correct time, and then out the window where the skies were quickly deepening into a dark blue as the sun started to set and night settled in. The jovial feeling the good meal and warm pub created was quickly sucked away as everyone recalled the task we still had ahead of us. Ryan had already taken care of the bill and was standing at the end of the table, looking like a man on his way to the gallows.
“Shall we?”
I wanted to dig my heels in and stay in the warmth of the pub with the gentle tune of an Irish lullaby playing in the background. I wanted to stay in the comfort and safety of this place and not go back out to face the harsh reality of what my world, what all of our worlds, had become. But I couldn’t, because I was a player in this game. I couldn’t let Hattie continue to hurt people in her twisted idea of making things right.
My feet felt heavy as I shuffled out of the pub, and we made our way back to our van. We’d only had the damn thing for a few hours, and I already hated it. The drive back was quiet for the most part. There was too much nervous energy in the confined space. The only exception was Theo who kept randomly shouting things like fart and cooter to try to lighten the mood. It worked on about half of us, and the rest looked like they were ready to murder him by the time Ryan parked the van.
We left the car on the side of the road about half a mile from the Hill of Tara, not wanting to call any attention to ourselves by parking it in the lot. Mari had a bag of spells that she’d collected from all of our luggage and was sorting through it, handing out little bottles to everyone as she took stock of her inventory.
“These are for the binding. Everyone should have one.”
Everyone included Theo. Even though he didn’t have magic, Mari said that he would make our circle stronger because of his bonds to us as family and more. Her eyes darted to Lola when she said more, and I swore there was surprisingly a little blush that covered Lola’s cheeks. I couldn’t be sure because it was getting almost too dark to see, but thankfully the moon was full and rising steadily, providing some light to guide us.
I felt a sprinkle of liquid on my head and looked up at the nearly cloudless sky in confusion, then saw Mari waving around a little vial of liquid like a priest blessing his congregation.
“What are you doing?” I said on a whispered laugh.
“It’ll help enhance your eyesight at night,” she replied just as quietly, and I gasped softly when I realized that things were becoming sharper and more in focus.
“Whoa,” I said quietly, amazed that this was something that could be done.
Munro squeezed my hand. He’d grabbed it when we’d gotten out of the van, as if the need for contact spurred him to touch me whenever possible. It was almost second nature to be touching him anymore, so much so that I barely noticed when he’d grabbed it this time. No one spoke as we walked the rest of the way, afraid of tipping off Hattie to our presence in case she was already there. Just before the Hill of Tara was about to come into view, Mari sprinkled another of her vials over us, whispering some words that I couldn’t make out.
Seeming to understand that I would have a question about this as well, she leaned close to my ear to tell me what she’d done. “This will mute our steps so she won’t hear us approach.”
My heart rate was increasing with every step we took, and I clenched my jaw together to keep my teeth from chattering nervously. Whenever I was nervous or scared, I’d get unreasonably cold and yet, somehow, I’d be sweating too. As far as special tricks that my body could do, it was a pretty impressive super power that no one would ever want.
As we came to the top of a small hill, we could see the coronation stone, and my stomach dropped when I saw Hattie standing there with her arms raised up toward the sky and a collection of oddities at her feet. Candles were burning, and there was a small bowl laid out on a cloth that was covered in other items that were too far away for me to identify. Part of me thought that we wouldn’t really find her here. That she would have come to her senses and disappeared, so that I could pretend none of this had really happened. Or maybe that she would have gone completely off the deep end and have been too crazy to see this part of her plan all the way through to the end.
Seeing her there in front of us made it too real. We were going to have to fight and defeat her. Walking silently, thanks to Mari’s spell, we crept up so that Hattie’s back was toward us and formed a line behind her. Following the directions that Ryan had hammered into my brain, I began reciting the words Mortem Imperium on a loop in my mind, my lips forming the words, though I didn’t speak them out loud.
The magic swarmed up around us, and I saw the golden sparks dancing like something was vibrating them, making them bounce around wildly. At the same time, now that I was focused, I could see Hattie’s magic as well, but it wasn’t golden. It was a dark, deep red, like blood coated with an oily substance. It made me remember the times she’d touched me and tried to pour her magic into me. I felt dirty and tainted just being near it. I fought the urge to separate out the golden magic and keep it from being stained by the contaminated sparks that Hattie was manipulating.
We’d only been behind her
for mere moments, but she must have sensed our presence almost immediately because she whipped around with a scowl on her face. Harsh lines of disgust were chiseled into her forehead and crowing at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her movement was the signal we’d been waiting on, and everyone threw their vials to the ground, the glass shattering in small pops and cracks as the spell was released at her feet. Our voices came out as one as we chanted Mortem Imperium, Mortem Imperium, over and over again, but Hattie just laughed. The sound sent a tremor of fear shivering through me. She should not be laughing.
Our voices grew louder, and Hattie bent at the waist with a gasp of pain, holding her stomach as if she’d been punched. My hope flared for a moment that this would work and we would be able to bind her magic and everything would be okay. But Hattie was too tricky. As she was bent, she grabbed a knife off the cloth that held the bowl and candles, and now that I was up close, I could see that it held a variety of bottles that were now empty and remnants of herbs that all looked to be swirling in the bowl. Still crouched over, Hattie made a vicious swipe of the knife against her palm, and it bled freely over the bowl.
Ryan broke out of our line, screaming “No!” but Hattie was too quick, and she swept her hand against the bowl, scooping underneath it to throw it against the stone, shouting resurgemus so loudly that it sounded like thunder booming around us.
Everything happened too quickly after that, and I don’t know what instinct took over me, but I knew something very bad was about to happen. Butch grabbed at Ryan’s shirt and pulled him back before he could get to Hattie, and our entire group stepped back as though commanded. My heart was thundering loudly in my ears, and I was nearly paralyzed with fear when the ground beneath us started to shake. Hattie just laughed like a maniac in front of us while I watched with horror. What had she done?
“Everyone, back up,” Lola yelled, and we all moved several more paces back. It was as if none of us could decide if it was better to run or to stay and watch Pandora’s box opening in front of us.