by Susan Harper
Cinur was the coded language that the terrorist Remembrance group used to send messages to one another. “Remembrance took a note out of their book, huh?” Monica asked.
“Yeah,” Abigail said. “Remembrance really came about because of some old members of the Avalon Order who disagreed with the way things were run. They left the order because they didn’t like the way the order treated non-wizards. The Avalon Order felt it was their duty to help those without as much power. Remembrance wanted to rule those without as much power. Extinguish them.”
“That’s how you got wrapped up in their nonsense, isn’t it?” Monica asked. “You weren’t powerful enough for the Avalon Order, so you never got the invite. Remembrance brought you in.”
“Yeah,” Abigail said. “Remembrance, so long as you were a pure-blooded witch or wizard, liked you. So long as you weren’t an unnatural. The Avalon Order wanted to use their gifts to serve. Remembrance wanted to rule.”
“The Avalon Order was founded by Merlin,” Monica said. “Remembrance isn’t that old, though, is it?”
“Oh, no,” Abigail said. “Remembrance only dates back to the Post-Salem era.”
“You were there when the group first started up,” Monica said. “Can you tell me anything about those early years?”
“I worked under the founder,” Abigail said. “We just called her Mother. She always wore that mask. Mother founded the group. She used to be part of the Avalon Order.”
“What happened to her?” Monica asked.
“Oh, she died during the Split,” Abigail said. “A lot of Remembrance members did.”
“I appreciate you telling me all this,” Monica said. She smiled slightly at Abigail. “It was good seeing you, Abigail. I’ve missed you.”
Abigail smiled back. “I’ve missed you too.”
“Maybe I can come by and visit you again soon?” Monica suggested, and Abigail beamed. She bid her farewell and flew back to Backroom Books. By the time she got there, Brian had returned and was showing Mona the character sketch.
“She’s not part of the Avalon Order,” Mona said. “We only have about fifty members worldwide right now. I would have seen her.”
Monica sighed. And here she thought they had found a lead. For all they knew, the woman they had seen was just a fan of the organization. Either way, the meeting between the woman and Grace had her unsettled.
Later that evening, Monica went by the hospital to see Holly and her mom. She pulled Holly aside and tried to tell her that she was starting to feel uneasy about Grace, but Holly found this highly offensive and brushed her off rather angrily.
13
Monica left the hospital feeling highly frustrated. Holly was rightfully protective of her family, but she hadn’t been willing to hear her out at all, which had annoyed Monica. She elected to call Brian, deciding it wasn’t too late to be bothering him. He sounded rather glad to hear from her. “How’s Holly’s mom doing?” he asked, knowing that she had decided to pay Holly a visit at the hospital.
“She’s doing a lot better today,” Monica said. “They’re saying she might be able to go home tomorrow.”
“Good,” he said.
“I’m not going to sleep well tonight,” Monica began. “This case is bothering me, and I’m still freaking out a little bit about Grace. I don’t know what it is, but something just isn’t settling right with me. I feel like I need to do something.”
“I agree,” Brian said. “I was thinking about going back to the cabin. See if there was anything I missed.”
“Just what I need—something to distract myself with,” Monica said. “I’ll meet you there.” She had her broom turn into a bicycle, and she rode it on the ground back to the cabin. She wished she could fly, but she was in Bankstown, and a flying bike was just as unsightly as a flying broom.
Eventually, she arrived at the cabin. It was dark out, so it was proving to be a rather fruitless effort. Even if there was something worth finding, it wasn’t likely that they were going to find it that late at night. Brian walked around the rubble with a flashlight, while Monica used her wand to provide her with light. “This is stupid,” Monica said after an hour of walking around.
“This case is hitting close to home for you,” Brian said. “And I’m sure finding out about your sister’s little secret today isn’t helping. Maybe you should go home and try to get some sleep?”
“I’m hungry,” Monica decided.
Brian laughed. “Then go home and eat and then sleep,” he said. “Tell you what, we’re right here. Why don’t I walk you back to the cottage, and I’ll make dinner?”
“You’ll make dinner?” she asked.
“You have food at the cottage, right?” he asked.
“Yeah, but you know I don’t have an oven or a stove or a microwave. You have to cook over the fire,” she pointed out.
“Stew it is,” he said. “Because that’s probably the only thing I’m going to be able to figure out how to make over a fireplace.”
Monica laughed, but she agreed. Together, they walked through the path in the woods that led to her little cottage. Once they entered, Monica saw a bit of green smoke coming from the cauldron she had simmering over a small, magically-controlled fire. She hurried over to see that the pot was bubbling over a green and purplish glob. “Oh! No way, it’s finally ready!” she exclaimed, grabbing some oven mitts to pull the cauldron away from the fire.
“Is that the ancestry potion you were doing for Holly?” Brian asked. “Kind of a moot point now, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I wanted to see how I did,” Monica said. “I’m a potions expert, but this was quite a challenge.” She hurried over to the small vial she had put Holly’s hair in, and once she had the cauldron sitting on her coffee table, she uncorked it. “Let’s see how this potion turned out.” She turned the vial upside-down, and the room instantly filled with green mist.
“Cool,” Brian said.
They saw flashes, starting with an image of Holly’s father and half-sister, Anniston. Their faces smiled through the mist. “Cool is right,” Monica said as the surrounding smog took them on a rather fascinating journey through Holly’s father’s side of the family.
“Look!” Brian yelped, a shadowy centaur galloping through—her great, great grandmother on her father’s side. “Jonathan’s not just part-immortal! He’s got centaur blood!”
“Oh my gosh…” Monica said, a handful of mountain trolls, elves, a vampire, and all sorts of creatures whooshing past. “Look over there…” She pointed to an elfish woman in red.
“Who is that?” Brian asked.
“Nick’s sister!” Monica yelped. “As in St. Nick—his sister! The one who died… She’s one of Holly’s great aunts!”
“This is crazy,” Brian said. “What is all of this?”
“Jonathan doesn’t even know it! He’s got all sorts of mystic and mortal ancestry, and he has no idea!”
Monica had never seen such a blended family line. Sprites, fairies, selkies, dwarves—of course, all of this went back thousands of years before. The more recent the family timeline, the more likely they were to come across strictly mortals and immortals. It had probably been several generations since those mortals even knew they had such a unique background. Four generations back, and the family had only intertwined with immortals and mortals, but it was still there in their DNA regardless, which was incredible to Monica.
Next, they saw Grace, and it seemed as though the mist was going to show them the maternal side of the family. They saw nothing but witches and wizards. A bloodline as pure as Monica had ever known one to be. It started back thousands upon thousands of years in the past, working its way forward until a wicked and frightful woman’s shadow stood before them. She stared back at them. “That… Is that the woman from earlier?” Brian asked. “Holly’s mother… That was her earlier. She’s still alive! Why would Grace… Why would Grace lie?”
Monica wasn’t listening. She was staring at the woman’s face. “She
’s not immortal…but according to what I’ve just seen, this woman has been around for thousands of years. Her mother is a pure-blooded witch, but…but she’s found a way to keep from aging.”
“Can witches do that?” Brian asked.
“There are ways magic can delay aging, but I’ve never heard of anything like this,” Monica said, staring at the woman’s shadowy face. She reached out and touched the mist, not entirely sure how this mist was supposed to work, but she was certain she could learn more if she merely requested it.
The shadowy figure of the woman spoke. “They will bow before me…”
Monica felt Brian grab her wrist as a sort of scene began to play out before them. The woman cackled a very witchy laugh that made Monica’s toes curl. Could this horrifying woman really be Holly’s mother? “A new persona…” the woman said, seeming to be at another point in her long life now. She waved her hands over her face, and a masquerade mask appeared over her eyes.
Monica and Brian’s jaws both dropped. This woman, Holly and Grace’s mother, was the founder of Remembrance. She hadn’t died as Abigail suspected. “What… What is this?” Brian asked in disbelief. “Who are you?” he said to the mist.
Monica didn’t think that simply asking would work, but she was proven wrong. The mist cackled, extending her hands and dropping the cloak, revealing a dress that looked like something straight out of a medieval era painting. “I have many names,” she cooed.
It hit Monica suddenly. “You’re her. You’re Morganna! Morgan Le Fay!”
There was one final cackling screech, and the mist vanished in an instant. Brian turned to Monica now that the mist had cleared. “Morgan Le Fay? As in the witch from the Arthurian Legends—that Morgan Le Fay?”
“That Morgan Le Fay,” Monica said. “She… She supposedly died at the hands of King Arthur thousands of years ago.”
“Um, evidently not…”
“We need to tell Holly,” Monica said. “Now! Brian, you have no idea what we are dealing with right now.”
“What?” Brian asked. “I mean, how bad could—”
“Brian, this is Morgan Le Fay!” Monica cried. “We have to find Holly right now, and we need to tell the Sorcerer’s Council that we saw her today! This is why they wanted to keep what they found quiet. They didn’t want Holly to know who her mother really was. They probably assumed she was dead.”
“They must have known she wasn’t,” Brian said. “Holly’s only in her twenties.”
“Maybe they thought Jonathan, since he’s part-immortal, has been around for a while,” Monica said. “Maybe they mistakenly thought Holly might have been too?”
“They surely aren’t that stupid,” Brian said. “They were afraid of this getting out.”
“Well, it’s out now!” Monica snapped. “Come on, we have to warn everyone. This is bad, Brian. Really bad.”
Monica had her broom change into its motorcycle self. It was dark enough out that night to fly, and they needed to get to Holly quickly. Brian sat on the back of her bike, and they zipped through the skies until they were able to find a safe place to land near the hospital. They didn’t make it all the way to Bonnie’s room before bumping into Holly. Holly’s eyes were wide with terror.
“Holly, I finished the ancestry potion!” Monica exclaimed, but she paused. “What… What’s going on?”
They had bumped into one another in the lobby. Looking behind Holly, Monica could see her whole family was out and about—George, Jonathan, and Anniston. Uncle Kyle was there with both of his children. Isaac and Naven had shown up. And, to Monica’s surprise, Jonathan’s brother-in-law, Holly’s wizarding Uncle Weston and his wife Torah were there along with Jonathan’s cousin Roczen.
“What’s up?” Brian reiterated.
“Mom is gone,” Holly said, and Monica noticed that the hospital staff was all darting about. “And not only that, but my stepmom is missing too, and so is Grace.”
“We just got in town,” Weston said. “Jonathan said he hadn’t seen Norah in hours, and when he got here and saw that Bonnie was missing too… Well… We all started to get worried.”
“Please, Brian, can you help us?” George beckoned. “We’re worried.”
Brian tugged at his shirt collar. “Monica, we need to… We need to tell them what we found.”
Monica fidgeted nervously. George was still standing there; he was mortal. She couldn’t just start talking about the ancestry potion in front of him. “Monica,” Brian said firmly. “I’m portal keeper. That’s got to count for something if I see we’re in a desperate situation here.”
Monica nodded, hoping the Sorcerer’s Council would be in a forgiving mood. “Holly, I think I know what’s going on,” she began. “Your mother, yours and Grace’s mother, she’s alive. We saw her. And… And I think she’s the one who tried to kill Bonnie. I think she’s after Norah now too.”
“What!” Holly exclaimed. “What are you talking about?”
“I think mommy is jealous,” Brian said curtly. “She’s taken Bonnie and Norah—your adopted mom and stepmom. She’s jealous, Holly. Of you.”
“But Grace said—” Holly began.
Naven cleared his throat. “She lied,” he said.
Brian glared at him. “And you knew?”
Naven grimaced. “She forgot to give me my love potion zis morning,” he snarled. “I have been under her spell for months.”
“What are you all talking about?” George snapped, and Jonathan put a hand on the man’s shoulder.
“We’ll explain it all to you, buddy, but right now, our wives are in trouble from a crazy witch,” Jonathan said. “So, why don’t we worry about doubts and speculations later?”
Monica nodded. “Brian, alert Chief Tollr. We need to find Morgan Le Fay.”
“Excuse me?” Holly asked.
“Your mom,” Monica said. “We need to find your mom. All three of them.”
14
Monica could tell that George’s head was spinning, but he certainly wasn’t the only one. Learning that the Morgan Norah had once known was in fact the famous Morganna was a bit of a shock. The witches and wizards of the group were especially troubled by this. “How is it that Morganna is still alive after all this time?” Weston asked as they darted out of the hospital. “She supposedly died during the Merlin era, didn’t she?”
“I’m really confused about what is fact and fiction at the moment,” George said. “Who is this woman, exactly?”
“Yeah,” his brother Kyle said, gripping the shoulder of each of his children with his eyes wide.
“Morgan Le Fay was part of the Avalon Order with Merlin during the Arthurian era,” Monica said. “But she was given the boot because of her mistreatment of mortals. Everyone assumed she had died during that time—that there was some grand battle between Arthur and Morganna.”
“But apparently not,” Holly said. “Apparently, she resurfaced right after the witch trials and started up Remembrance.”
Kyle, looking confused as ever, dared to prod a bit further. “And Remembrance is what, exactly?”
“It’s a cult,” Monica said. “A terroristic cult. They believe in a hierarchy. They think mortals and basically anything non-wizard are lesser beings. Insults to nature. They think of them as animals.”
“And apparently, my mother started that nonsense,” Holly said, shaking her head. “Okay, so Remembrance died out a bit during the Split. Then what do we think happened?”
“It resurfaced,” Jonathan said, his face turning a slight pink. “When some of their surviving members found me.”
Weston shook his head. “Yes, including my sister and I. Morganna must have gone after you first. Wanted to create an Ibeji.”
“Which she did,” Roczen said. “Which explains a lot of your memory loss, Jonathan. I mean, I’m still new to this whole mystic world myself, but it would take some pretty strong magic to make him completely forget the first seventeen years of his life, right?”
“Right,” Mon
ica said. “So Morganna disappears for a while now that Remembrance is flourishing so that she can raise one of her daughters. She sends Holly to the mortal world to ensure that the girls can’t accidentally kill one another off. Now she’s got two powerful Remembrance soldiers—fully-fledged Ibeji.”
“She convinced my wife to leave Remembrance, though,” Jonathan pointed out. “Once Anniston and Angel were born—our Ibeji.”
“There was some conflict in Remembrance at the time,” Weston said. “Maybe Morganna viewed them as a threat and wanted her to separate herself from Remembrance? She probably knew Norah wouldn’t be able to give up one of the girls, which meant they wouldn’t be able to mature. Anniston wouldn’t be a threat to her daughters because she would never become a fully-matured Ibeji.”
“Great,” Anniston groaned. “We figured out Morganna’s decades-long plot to create for herself two powerful Ibeji. Now why is she after my mom?”
“And mine,” Holly added, referring to Bonnie.
“I think I agree with Monica and Brian,” Isaac said. “The woman isn’t happy with one loyal Ibeji. She wants you too, Holly. Maybe she thinks of them as a threat? Why else target just your mother figures and not the rest of your family?”
Anniston began to fidget. Holly hurried over, putting her hands on her younger half-sister’s shoulders. “We’re going to find our moms,” Holly promised.
Brian’s phone began to buzz. He answered it quickly. “Chief Tollr! Please tell me you got my message…” Brian’s face lit up. “What happened? Oh! Yeah, perfect. Lead the mortal detectives on a wild goose chase for me, Chief, and I’ll get the authorities to help once we cross over. I’ll keep you posted.” Brian hung up his phone. “Good news. I sent that character sketch we did for Mona to Chief Tollr and he put out a BOLO on Morganna and Grace. Local police spotted them and two hostages and cornered them at Backroom Books, but when they searched the place, they were gone.”
