by Audra Hart
Morna is enraged by her mother’s attitude and summons her warrior persona with a roar as she weaves the iron-lion spell on her failing body. She hands the babe to Rinda and arises from the bed, blood is still pouring from her belly, but she is determined to drive them from her home. Once she has driven them outside, she collapses in the grass in front of her cottage. Luca and Brigid rush to her side. He’s desperately weaving healing spells, but it’s too late. Rinda screams for Brigid, the baby isn’t breathing… Morna feels her last heart beat as she reaches for Luca. Then she remembers no more until Luca finds her in Verona. And all of those memories are milky, unfocused and exceedingly painful.
Morna strokes Aideen’s face again, and looks into those eyes that are exact duplicates of her own, “You are truly my babe?” she whispers. “My child truly lives?”
Aideen says, “Yes Mama, I am your babe. I am your Aideen, your flame,” Aideen whispers back. Morna takes the young woman into her arms and holds her rocking side to side. She stands there like that for longest time, until Luca says, “Morna, love are you okay?”
“I am better than okay, my child has come back to me,” Morna vows. Suddenly she realizes she is wearing nothing but a towel. She looks to Luca and motions to the towel, he goes to the bathroom to get her robe. After putting the robe on Morna pats the bed beside her. “Sit child, let me get to know you,” says Morna enthusiastically.
She drinks in the sight of her child. Aideen is probably 5’2’, and 110 pounds. Her creamy complexion is exactly like Morna’s was at one time. She has thick, shiny shoulder length copper-red hair. She’s very well dressed in a conservative designer pant suit. Obviously a professional woman. Her manner is that of a woman who is accustomed to getting her way in all things.
Aideen holds back for a second and then says, “Mama could you break the link between us? I am hearing, seeing, and feeling our conversation twice and its giving me a headache.”
Morna stutters, “Link?”
“Yes Mama, you linked with me in your sleep this morning. You were having disturbing dreams, or something, and the link has held fast ever since,” answers Aideen. “That’s why I came over this morning. I knew you were upset, you were in the bathroom so long, floundering. I came over to make Daddy help you. I had just explained to Daddy when you found us in the hallway.”
Morna looks away, blushes bright red, “We were linked while I was in the bathroom?” she whispers. When she looks at Aideen, she simply nods, and Morna ducks her head in shame. “But not last night?” When Aideen assures her they were not linked last night.
“I am sorry, child,” she whispers. She gets up quickly and goes again into the bathroom. She waves her hand in front of her face and says Aideen-sever, in light Elvish. She calls out to Aideen through the door. “Is that better?”
“Yes, thank you,” answers Aideen.
Morna leans against the door and covers her face. Of all the asinine things to do to one’s own child. How could I have not been aware the link had been re-established? How could I have stood here in the middle of that panic attack and start reliving last night with Luca? Oh that poor girl. She must think her mother is a wanton of the worst kind.
As soon as Luca understands the cause of Morna’s reaction he turns to Aideen. “I am so sorry baby girl. She wouldn’t share anything like that with you on purpose, you know that right?”
Aideen smiles and says, “S’right Daddy. I can’t say it was pleasant for me,” she chuckles throatily. “But I must say, you guys rock!” Then she laughs nervously and adds, “Daddy, go get her back out here. She is really, really freaked out today. She needs us, both of us right now. I will call Brigid and tell her Mom won’t be there until noon. That will give us all morning to help her calm down, okay?”
Luca smiles and lovingly kisses his daughter on the forehead and walks to the bathroom door. He knocks quietly on the bathroom door. “Morna, let me in love.”
Morna opens the door for him and he slips in, closing the door behind him. Morna reaches over and locks the door. Luca arches an eyebrow at her, and asks, “Are you okay love?”
“Hell no! I am not okay. I am sure she isn’t either,” she mumbles. “She got a pretty good look at how we passed the time last night, if you know what I mean,” Morna laments, and buries her face into Luca’s chest.
“Morna, honestly she is okay.” He chuckles and says, “She said we rock.”
“Crap! My child knows what a wanton hussy I am,” she moans softly. “What a way to get to know your long lost mother!”
“Morna, she knows no such thing because that simply isn’t true, you are just feeling embarrassed. But take heart honey, this isn’t the first time she has met you. She met you in other lifetimes too. She also came to see you in the hospital a few times. She even came to Mad Mike’s once. You just weren’t ready to see who she was yet.”
“She really hasn’t had much of a mother has she?” Morna asks sadly. “Or a father for that matter if you have spent the better part of the last 600 years chasing after me. Oh God Luca, what have I done to our child?”
“You have done nothing to her or me. I keep telling you that. None of this is in anyway your fault!” insists Luca with more than a hint of frustration in his voice.
“But it has still hurt both of you, hasn’t it?” she asks brokenly.
Luca looks away and reluctantly nods before taking her into his arms. “Morna, we have you back. You remember both of us, this is the first time the three of us have been able to be together, as a family in a very long time. Do you really want to waste one minute of that locked in this bathroom, wallowing in regrets?” he asks firmly. When Morna shakes her head no, he says, “Good. Now get your shower, get dressed. I will order room service and my two beautiful girls can share a meal and get to know each other again.”
Morna hugs him tightly and says, “Thank you Luca. Please forgive me for being so weak and crazy.”
“You are not weak, you are not crazy. You have had to absorb a whole string of other lifetimes in less than a week. A very mind-boggling, unbelievable string of lifetimes I might add. It is no small wonder you were feeling a little overwhelmed this morning. Okay so the mind link and you thinking about last night was unfortunate, but not the end of the world. Okay?” Morna nods again.
Luca asks, “How’s the head?”
“It really hurts,” she admits.
“Take some more Advil. Maybe the shower will help, baby,” Luca suggests before he kisses her deeply. He reluctantly turns her toward the shower and smacks her butt gently. “Hurry, we miss you when you are gone,” he says before unlocking the bathroom door and slipping out.
Morna showers quickly, but takes a few minutes to let the hot water run over her throbbing head. She quickly shaves her legs and underarms. She has to laugh because she normally let’s that little job go as long as possible, but now it seems of paramount importance. Finally, she gets out and dries her hair and throws on some jeans and tee shirt. She gets her prescriptions out of her bag, and toys with the idea of smoking a cigarette. But she resists. She decides instead to try to forget about the embarrassing way she and her daughter were reunited and just rejoice that they were, indeed, reunited.
She’s eager to spend time with her daughter, but suddenly she feels very shy, and still very embarrassed over the mind link. She tries to recall exactly what she had thought about last night. And decides it was pretty tame, no explicit details, just some fleeting images and sensations. So maybe Aideen wasn’t thoroughly disgusted with her mother. She stands with her hand on the door knob for a few more minutes trying to calm her heart before stepping out into the other room.
Finally, Luca knocks and enters. He quickly assesses her mood and decides she needs a little nudge. “Morna, stop standing here with your hand on the door knob, just come on already.” He kisses her soundly and takes her hand and leads the way.
Aideen jumps up and runs to Morna when she finally comes out of the bathroom. The women hold each other i
n a close embrace for several moments. Aideen steps back and says, “Wow! Morna Glynn Michaels! My mom in the flesh!”
Morna reaches out and strokes Aideen’s cheek lovingly. “My darling girl, you are so beautiful! And you have the aura of a Spell Weaver of the First Order, am I correct?” Aideen nods. Morna hugs her again. “At what age did you ascend?”
“In my nineteenth year, just like you Mama,” she says proudly.
“Wonderful! Wonderful!” enthuses Morna, and hugs her again. “Come sit, tell me everything!” Morna reaches out and grabs Luca’s hand as they walk by him on the way to the table in the sitting area of their hotel suite.
Morna reaches across the table to hold Aideen’s hand, and Luca sits next to her with his arm around her. Morna says, “So are you married? Where do you live? Am I a grandmother? Tell me everything!”
Just then room service delivers their meals. They make a little small talk while the waiter is there. When he leaves Morna is really feeling uncomfortable, but Luca squeezes her hand under the table and repeats Morna’s earlier questions for Aideen.
Aideen clears her throat and says, “Well no, I am not married, and you are not a grandmother yet. Currently I live here in Chicago, but Daddy says there is a house down the street from you two that is for sale, so I am thinking about looking at it, unless you guys decide to relocate. Let’s see… I am a general surgeon. I guess you could say I am married to my job.
“You don’t live in Airendell?” Morna asks.
“No Mama, I haven’t been to Airendell since the day I was born,” Aideen says softly.
“Then who acted as your lore mother?” Morna asks.
“Breena,” comes Aideen’s quiet reply. Morna senses a little resentment and wonders if it’s because she was unable to act as her daughter’s lore mother as is tradition.
Morna chuckles, “I bet that was interesting. Breena is such a goof, but she really knows her magic and the lore. She must have been an excellent lore mother. I know you had an excellent teacher.”
Aideen smiles fondly and says, “Oh yes Breena is a goof, but she made sure that I felt like I truly knew who you were as I was growing up. She adores you Mama.”
“I adore her too, she is one of the most beautiful souls I have ever known, but you know that already,” says Morna with a sad smile. Morna is suddenly overcome with an urge to see her sister again. It has been so very long since the sisters were together.
“Why did you leave Airendell the day you were born?” Morna asks with a hard look on her face. She suspects that she knows the reason, but can’t be sure.
Luca rubbed her back and spoke up quietly, “Morna, what do you remember of the time after I was changed?”
Morna closes her eyes, pushes the pain in her head back into a dark corner, and tries to summon all of her memories of that time. “Well, I remember you and I spent three weeks in the glen after the change was complete and the witch put that curse on me. You told me to put in a binding spell, so that you couldn’t hurt me or anyone else. Eventually I figured out how to expand it so that you could move around in it, but not get out of it. It worked a lot like a buffer spell turned inwards.” Luca smiles at her encouragingly.
“I didn’t think that it would be a good idea if Magdrid and the Elders knew what had happened to you before you had yourself completely under control, so I snuck into the village and told Breena. And she in turn told Brigid and Rinda. They would slip out to the glen now and then to bring me food and keep you company while I hunted for you. I hunted for you every other day because I didn’t know how often you would need to consume blood.”
“After you finally felt it might be safe for me to drop the spell, I told you about the baby. Oh Aideen, your daddy was very, very happy to learn we were having a child. He would pester me endlessly, just wanting to rub my belly. He would sing to you and rest his head against my swollen stomach. He went right to work building a cottage there, in the glen for the three of us. It was a beautiful time in our lives.” Morna’s face glows with love at the memories of that time.
“The pregnancy went pretty smoothly until about five days before you were born. Magdrid and her little flunky Shamus came out to snoop around. Magdrid flew into a rage when she saw me heavy with child. When Luca came back from hunting and they realized what he had become, although now I suspect they knew all along, they started calling our child devil spawn and all sorts of ridiculous things like that.”
“I was so angry I was literally seeing red, I slipped into the warrior persona and drove them out the glen. When they got back to the village they started telling everyone that Luca had been changed into a vampire and raped me, and that I was carrying devil spawn.” Morna takes a deep breath and rubs her temples, the pain is savagely pushing its way out the corner of her consciousness. “When Breena, Brigid, and Rinda heard about the lies they were spreading they gathered up some our generation Spell Weavers and came to the glen to protect me. Let’s see who came to help, Fionn was there, Brian and Carrick. Also Bronwyn and Enya. Does that sound right Luca?”
“Yes love, your memories are very accurate,” he agrees with a proud smile.
“But my strength started to fail for some reason, we thought maybe it was a complication of the pregnancy, but I knew for certain later on that someone had placed a sickening spell on me. By the time I went into labor three days later I could actually taste and smell the essence of the person who sent the spell. Whoever it was, they were very bitter, putrid in their entire soul and being, wholly evil.” Morna shudders and rubs the goose bumps that appear on her arms at the memories. A wave of nausea hits, and she swallows back the bile. “I shudder even now just to think about the evil of that spell, and the person who sent it at me. It was weakening my heart.”
Morna smiles brightly and say, “I remember Aideen being born. Oh Aideen, I thought that were the most beautiful baby ever born!”
Morna‘s look of pure joy is replaced by one confusion. “Then I remember Magdrid and her bunch coming and demanding we hand over the child. I summoned my warrior persona, but I didn’t have enough strength to maintain it… Rinda said that you weren‘t breathing…” Morna touches Aideen’s cheek, smiles and then let’s her hand fall. She is silent for a couple of minutes, then says, “I don’t remember any more. I assume that is when I… when I died.” She looks at Luca, reaching out to stroke his cheek with great sadness in her heart knowing what that must of have done to him. “I am so sorry, my love. For all of the times I left you.”
“You never left me, beloved. Dying because of a curse isn’t your fault.” He kisses her tenderly and pulls her into his arms to hold her, vowing silently to never bury his mate again. He finally remembers their daughter and releases Morna to smile at their child.
Aideen comes over to her mother and takes her in her arms. “Mama, I think you are trying to protect me, but I know all the grisly details of my birth. I insisted that Brigid mind share her memories with me. You were amazing! Your belly was laid open where Brigid delivered me by C-section. You had overheard her telling Daddy that the birthing was taking too long and that she feared for my life. You demanded that she take the baby right then, even though Brigid warned you that she didn’t think you were strong enough to survive the operation. When she got inside she found that your uterus had ruptured and neither one of us would have survived if she hadn’t conceded to your demands.”
“Mama, Brigid’s memories of you that day are amazing. You rose up off the birthing bed, with your belly laid open and chased them out of the house. Don’t you remember striking younger Shamus down?” Morna gasps at this and covers her mouth with her hand. “You didn’t kill him, but your magic stripped him of all his magic and his immortality for trying to take me out of your arms. He died ten years later, a very bitter man, so we have heard.”
“Brigid cleared the blockage in my throat and I resumed breathing, but you were already gone. After there was no hope of saving you, Daddy wove a buffer spell around me, Brigid and Breena. T
hey escaped with me to Scotland first, and then Iceland, eventually we came to America. Daddy fought Magdrid and her cronies, with your other six supporters, Fionn, Brian, and Rinda, Carrick, Bronwyn and Enya all helping to hold them off so that we could escape.”
“The rest of this I got from Enya. Daddy could see they were going to be overwhelmed by the warriors Magdrid commanded, so he urged all six to flee while he held them off. We later learned that Magdrid and her cronies overwhelmed Daddy and put him under an exile spell, they held him at the cottage in the glen.” Morna gasps again, and clasps Luca’s hands to her heart. “He was trapped there until Breena came back and helped him escape when I was three years old. They came to me in Scotland, and eventually went to Verona, and found you there.”
Morna let go of one of Luca’s hands and grasps Aideen’s hand, “You didn’t have a mother or a father for the first three years of your life? I am so sorry honey.”
Aideen scoffed, “Mom, Daddy said you have an annoying habit for apologizing for things that are not your fault. Good grief!” Aideen tosses her hair negligently and says, “Look, I had tons of people of who loved me. Everyone who helped you and Daddy in the glen that day, they all took upon themselves to raise me as a Spell Weaver. To help me become a woman that you could be proud to call your daughter. They all set the bar pretty high for me when I was coming up.”
Morna thinks Aideen almost sounds bitter when she says this. She looks intently at her daughter trying to fathom her deepest emotions, trying to get inside of her head… But the pain is too intense. She lets go of Aideen’s hand and reaches up and rubs her forehead. The headache has been getting steadily worse, now every movement is sending stabbing pains from her temples into what seems like the very center of her brain. Suddenly a wave of nausea over takes her and jumps up and makes a dash for the bathroom.
