Born In Water

by Sarah Hegger

  The momentous-day feeling was replaced by one of being watched, so she cracked her lids open.

  Roz perched on the end her bed. She cocked her head and studied Bronwyn. Smacking her lips, she did that sickening head swivel. Who-hoo?

  “Morning, Roz.”

  The Tasmanian devil sleep shirt had been replaced with a cleaner and newer Tweety Bird sleep shirt. The tangled nest of Roz’s hair would need a pair of pruning sheers, possibly a high-powered hose.

  Click-click-whrrrr. Roz ducked her head and appeared to be studying her feet. She sat up suddenly, a mouse dangling out her mouth.

  A grown woman eating a mouse was all kinds of wrong. Bronwyn shuddered.

  Dangling by its tail and scrabbling tiny splayed nails through the air, the mouse twisted and pivoted.

  Roz slurped up an inch of tail.

  Getting her dry heaving under control, Bronwyn managed an inside voice. “What are you doing with the mouse, Roz?” She couldn’t express how much she wanted to be wrong about what Roz was doing with the mouse.

  Roz cocked her head, jerking the mouse into a limbs akimbo frenzy.

  “Niamh.” Bronwyn yelled. She was so out of her lane here. Her voice took on a hysterical edge. “Niamh!”

  Roz worked her lips, and another inch of mouse tail disappeared into her mouth.

  “No.” Bronwyn’s feet hit the floor, and she hissed at the cold stone. Hobbling closer to Roz, she kept her arms clearly in view. “Do not eat the mouse, Roz.”

  Another pursed lip suck and more tail disappeared.

  “Niamh!” Bronwyn slammed her little toe into the corner of the bed. “Ouch! Motherfucker! NIIIIAAMMHHH!”

  Niamh stumbled through her door, hair in a wild red tangle around her head and shoulders. “What?” She caught sight of Roz and recoiled. “Ah, bollocks. That is so wrong.”

  Two dogs and a three-legged badger followed Niamh. The badger disappeared under Bronwyn’s bed. The dogs joined the fun, tails wagging as they yipped and danced around Roz.

  “Do something.” Bronwyn’s gaze fixed on the shrinking tail as she rubbed her injured toe on her standing foot.

  Niamh crept closer and hissed at her. “Don’t panic her.”

  “Never mind that. Get the …” Bronwyn ran out of words and waggled her finger at the terrified rodent. “Get it out of her mouth.”

  “Roz.” Niamh inched closer to her aunt. “Give me the mouse.”

  Roz turned her head to Niamh. A two-hundred-and-seventy-degree twist that made Bronwyn’s stomach lurch. “She should not be able to do that.”

  The smaller terrier-type dog gave a straight-legged spring in his attempt at the mouse.

  Roz had reached the thick part of the mouse tail now. One big gulp and it would be Hasta La Vista, Speedy.

  Niamh grabbed the two inches of mouse body and locked gazes with Roz. “Drop it,” she said. “Drop it right now, Roz.”

  The terrier sprang and yapped its agreement.

  Roz bared her teeth at Niamh.

  The mouse squealed.

  The other dog leaped onto the bed and lunged for the mouse.

  “Get off my bed,” Bronwyn bellowed at the dog.

  It ignored her and made another attempt at the mouse. Seeing its companion making headway, the terrier joined him on the bed.

  Niamh tugged on the mouse.

  Roz narrowed her eyes and then snapped open her mouth.

  “Thank you, Jesus.” Niamh stumbled back with the mouse cradled against her chest.

  Roz shimmied her shoulders and hopped off Bronwyn’s bed. She drew level with Niamh and hissed before sauntering out the door.

  Robbed of their prey, the dogs leaped off the bed and joined Niamh.

  Niamh stared after Roz. “We have got to do something about her.”

  “Maybe Maeve will know something.” There was only so much a girl could take, so Bronwyn shoved Roz to the back of her mind. “Did a statue really wake up yesterday?”

  “I don’t know if we could call it waking up.” Niamh’s eyes sparkled. “But two really old people arrived in our kitchen.”

  Bronwyn liked the our in that statement. “We should go and check on them.”

  “Maeve’s not in her room.” Niamh looked guilty. “I may have spied on them earlier.”

  “May have?”

  Niamh giggled. “Definitely did. Had plans to hover over her bed like a total creeper. I still can’t really get my head around her being real.”

  “If she’s not in her bed, where else would Maeve be?” Bronwyn would probably have also lurked around like a psycho.

  “Barracks,” Niamh said. “Or that’s what my grandmother called that part of the castle.”

  Bronwyn pulled on some socks for her icy feet. She didn’t suppose heating the castle would be easy. “Barracks? As in an army?”

  “All castles have them.” Niamh shrugged. “Ours were for the coimhdeacht.”

  “The what now?” Bronwyn had caught something that sounded like kweev-duct.

  “Roderick was the first of them, and they were supposed to live in the barracks. We thought they were a legend, to be honest.” Niamh rolled her eyes. “Men who were called by Goddess to serve as protection for the witches. There was something about being bonded to each other.” She shrugged. “It all sounded like a fairy tale. I don’t remember the details.”

  “A bond, like marriage?” Roderick and Maeve had certainly seemed to be close. He hovered around her protectively.

  Niamh shook her head. “No. I’m not really sure but more like a you protect me and get superpowers for it, sort of thing.”

  “Superpowers?” Really, at this point, the litany of whacked shit in her life should be drowning her. Bronwyn was amazed she hadn’t started dribbling or perching on beds like Roz. “Like super strength or x-ray vision?”

  “It sounds stupid when you put it like that.” Niamh poked her arm. “Now get dressed so we can go and spy on our walking fossils.”

  Bronwyn dived into her underwear and went with jeans and a sweatshirt. Bunching her hair into a ponytail, she followed Niamh downstairs into the great hall.

  They moved past the red cordon that Hermione had detoured. “I had to call Hermione and cancel the tours.” Niamh grimaced. “She was really not happy. Although the disappearing statue has definitely generated more interest in the village.”

  “Right.” Canceling the castle tours made sense, given the newest arrivals at Baile. Roderick and Maeve’s appearance would have made a good story for Hermione’s tour patter. However, not a story anyone would believe.

  Niamh took her to an arched wooden door that had to be fifteen feet high and nearly that wide. Thick slabs of metal reinforcing said you weren’t getting in there unless you were invited.

  Bronwyn tried to remember. “Was this part of the tour?”

  “I haven’t been here in years.” Niamh pressed her palm to the door. “I hope you don’t have a thing about spiders.”

  Bronwyn baulked. “Why?”

  “Never mind.” Looking far too innocent, Niamh turned the door handle.

  The door swung open as if it had been recently oiled and revealed another corridor. A bank of windows ran along the left of the corridor, and from there, they could see clear to Greater Littleton. The flagstones shone as if recently polished, and the wood wainscoting reflected a warm sheen.

  “Huh.” Niamh blinked at the corridor. “Last time I was here…” She took a ginger step beyond the door.

  Bronwyn wasn’t moving without more information. “Last time you were here, what?”

  “It was dusty.” Niamh took another couple of steps. “Full of cobwebs.”

  “Maybe Roderick cleaned it.” Bronwyn followed her.

  Niamh looked unconvinced. “That’s a lot of cleaning.”

  On the wall opposite the windows—windows with sparkly clean glass—large tapestries depicted battle scenes. Lots of swords and knights and horses…and a couple of dragons. Surely there weren’t…

/>   At this point, it was really looking like it might be wiser to go with shit and not question too closely.

  At its end, the corridor widened into six broad stone steps leading down to an arched double door, heavy with metal studs and braces. “Were they expecting some kind of attack?”

  There was a definite warlike decorating scheme going on in this part of the castle.

  Niamh stopped in front of the door. “We were never allowed to go further.”

  “Why not?” Bronwyn had a brief, and worrying, fantasy of opening the doors and Smaug flying out.

  “Here goes nothing.” Niamh turned the handle and shoved. “Oof!” Her shoulder collided with the doors. “These are bloody heavy.”

  Putting her shoulder beside Niamh’s, Bronwyn joined in shoving the doors open. Once they got them moving, they swung open smoothly.

  Welcome.

  “What?” Bronwyn looked at Niamh.

  Niamh blinked back her. “What?”

  “You said welcome.”

  “No, I didn’t. You did.” Niamh paled. “Didn’t you?”

  “Nope.” Bronwyn shook her head. Running like hell seemed like an option.

  Niamh’s dogs surged past them down the corridor. The terrier looked back and barked at them.

  “They wouldn’t go if it was dangerous,” Niamh said and took a couple of hesitant steps before stopping. “You coming?”

  “Is no an option?” It took a few deep breaths for Bronwyn to trust Niamh’s pack and follow them through the doors into an open space. Weapons. Everywhere she looked. Swords, pikes, lances, axes, that stick with the spiked ball on the end that she didn’t know the name of. Crossbows and longbows, quivers full of arrows, and daggers of all shapes and sizes. Everything you would need to wage a medieval war, and all of it gleaming like it had been neatly cleaned and hung up that morning.

  Niamh’s low whistle broke the silence. “They all look brand new.”

  Four wooden tables, each with two benches neatly tucked beneath them, took up the center of the room. You could probably seat eight to ten per table.

  “So these kweev-whatevers were soldiers?” Bronwyn had wandered into a medieval re-enactors wet dream.

  “Coimhdeacht.” Hands behind her back, Niamh stood in front of a bunch of swords on the wall and stared. “Kind of. More like elite bodyguards, each individually sworn to protect one witch.”

  If witches had magic, then why would they need protecting? But she was beginning to feel like a preschooler with all her questions, so she tucked that one away for later.

  An archway, doors standing open, led into an even bigger room. Oval shaped with a sandy floor, one wall was entirely made of windows facing the village. Nobody could approach the castle without being seen from the parapet outside the windows.

  Again with the martial decorating theme. Less ornate than the ones in the other room, weapons hung on the walls, whilst others sat in open wooden crates stacked against the wall. A crate of wooden staves provided a clue.

  “This must be a sort of practice room,” Bronwyn said. Again, it looked as if someone could step on the sandy floor and pick up a sword.

  Through another door, they followed Niamh’s dogs. Rows of open doorways stretched on either side of a central passage.

  They peered into the nearest one. A large canopied bed dominated the room. Beside the bed, stood a wooden cabinet, and at the foot, a large wooden trunk.

  On the bed, Roderick and Maeve lay sleeping. He was on his back, and she was tucked against his side, head on his shoulder.

  “It must be a kind of married thing,” Bronwyn whispered to Niamh.

  Niamh studied the pair. “They certainly seem to be close.”

  “We are not married.” Roderick opened his eyes and looked at them. He raised one dark brow in question. “Is something amiss?”

  Niamh stared back at him. “I don’t know, is there?”

  Bronwyn was really glad she wasn’t the only one floundering through all of the new revelations. “We came to find you,” she said. “In case you needed anything.”

  “Roderick?” Maeve blinked awake. She sat up and frowned at the bed. “I must have fallen asleep.”

  Roderick smiled at her. “You did. We came here after the caverns.”

  “Niamh?” Mags called from outside. “Are you and Bronwyn down here?”

  “In here,” Niamh bellowed back, loud enough to make Bronwyn wince.

  “It appears I am to entertain the entire coven in my bedchamber.” Roderick sat up and rubbed his hands over his face. It really was a very handsome face, especially with the light dusting of stubble over his square chin.

  The wicked ink scrolled over his forearm was a deep russet brown. Bronwyn wanted to study it closer.

  Mags trotted into the room, smiling. “Couldn’t stay away either, hmm?” She grinned at Maeve and Roderick. “I have so many questions. I woke up in the middle of the night, and all the things I want to know wouldn’t stop going around and around my head.” She giggled. “Eventually I had to get up and write them all down.”

  Roderick looked appalled, and Bronwyn empathized.

  “Good morning.” Alannah appeared in the doorway with a tray in her hands. “I brought coffee.” She raised the tray to show them the cups on it. “But then I couldn’t remember when coffee first came to England, and maybe you didn’t know it or like it.”

  “So, I brought the tea.” Sinead eased past her into the room with a second tray.

  Something passed between Maeve and Roderick. Bronwyn couldn’t see or hear a damn thing, but she sensed they communicated in ways she didn’t understand. Yet.

  “Coffee.” Roderick sent Alannah a looked of near desperation. “I know coffee.”

  “Told you so.” Sinead put the tea tray on the chest at the end of Roderick’s bed. She motioned to it. “Help yourself.”

  Alannah had included a plate of cinnamon rolls and one of blueberry muffins. She caught Bronwyn looking at the baked goods and shrugged. “I bake. Mostly when I’m stressed.”

  The next few minutes passed in getting everyone provisioned.

  Niamh’s dogs jumped onto the bed, and she perched on the edge.

  Sitting on the bed seemed far too personal, so Bronwyn made a space for herself next to the tea tray on the chest.

  “So.” Sinead dragged the word into several syllables. “What happens now?”

  It was as good a question as any to start.

  Roderick sipped his coffee and sighed. “It’s good.”

  “I roast my own beans.” Alannah leaned closer to him.

  Sinead took a seat beside Maeve. “And I grind them.”

  Maeve blinked at her and nibbled her cinnamon roll.

  “Maeve and I made some discoveries last night.” Roderick slipped into the role of leader, and they all let him. “Firstly, and most importantly, Goddess is alive. She’s weak, but she’s alive.”

  The others nodded as if this meant something to them. Bronwyn added it to her mental list of questions she would space out over time.

  “She’s real?” Alannah grew misty eyed.

  Roderick gaped at her. “Of course she’s real. From whence do you think your power comes?”

  “They don’t know.” Maeve touched Roderick’s arm. “I believe she has been near silent since we went into stasis. Perhaps they were not taught what we all knew from the cradle.”

  Roderick nodded. “Good point.” He turned to look at them. “Goddess gave the cré-witches their powers, so they could serve humanity on her behalf. The stronger your powers are, the stronger she is.”

  Bronwyn had read about this the other night in the library. “She called four witches first. A guardian, a healer, a seer.” She stopped to think what the fourth one was.

  Maeve helped her out. “And a warden. We believe Goddess has called four again.”

  Alexander had told Bronwyn about Goddess when he’d dumped her at Baile. Wherever he was, she couldn’t help but hope he was all right. Her co
ntinued connection with Alexander had to be wrong, given all that Rhiannon and he had done to the coven.

  “I’m not sure we really have any powers.” Niamh looked to the other Cray women for support. “I mean, I can sense what animals want, and I have a way with them, but that’s not really a power.”

  “You’re a guardian,” Maeve said. “You have the power to share the minds and spirits of animals.”

  Niamh blinked at her. “Cool.”

  “And you’re the seer.” Maeve turned to Mags. “You can scry people, see into the future, predict things.”

  “I do get dreams.” Mags frowned and chewed her lip. “And sometimes I know when somebody is going to arrive or the phone will ring.”

  Roderick reached for more coffee and another muffin. His third, if Bronwyn wasn’t mistaken. It must take a lot of fuel to run all that muscle and bone.

  “Wardens.” Roderick jerked his head at Alannah and Sinead. “They seem to share a blessing.”

  “That happens with twins.” Maeve smiled at Alannah and Sinead. “Not often, but it does happen, and you are warden witches. Your province is the earth and growing things.”

  Alannah looked at Sinead and laughed. “We do like gardening.”

  “Which brings us to you.” Roderick looked at Bronwyn. “You’re a healer.”

  Bronwyn looked at the Cray women and then Maeve. She didn’t fit in there. “I wasn’t raised in Baile.”

  “It doesn’t change what you are.” Roderick shrugged. “But if you were not raised here, and you are new, it adds to our growing evidence.”

  “Of?” Bronwyn asked.

  “Rhiannon,” he said, like the name tasted toxic to him. “Only Baile and Goddess stand between her and whatever she wants. They have both grown weak, so she must be preparing to attack.”

  Maeve paled and gripped his arm. “We barely survived last time with a coven of ninety witches and a full complement of coimhdeacht.”

  It must have been awful for Maeve and Roderick to witness the coven massacre. What to her and the Cray cousins was a page in history, to Maeve and Roderick had been the loss of friends and loved ones.

  “We need to assess our strengths and weaknesses.” Roderick looked grim. “There is no time to lose. I must become familiar with this time.”

  “I can help you with that, brother,” a man said as he popped up. One moment the space beside Alannah was empty, and the next, a tall, dark-haired man dressed like a pirate had materialized.