by C. E. Murphy
But maybe we’d been on the road constantly because he was responding to the needs of a weary earth. My vivid memory of visiting Montana and the Battle of Little Bighorn site abruptly seemed a lot like the afternoon’s antics on Croagh Patrick. Dad had been disgusted with the white men who’d fought there, which even my eight-year-old self had understood. There were still bullets buried in the tops of the small, sharply rolling hills: it was not a site for modern warfare to take place. But Dad’s disgust could have gone much deeper than that…and so could have the time we’d spent there, crawling up and down hills, our hands in the dirt. I’d just been playing, but if Dad had power, too, then that wasn’t a place he’d be playing at.
An awful, awful lot of the places we’d visited came clear when seen in that light. We’d followed the Trail of Tears. Visited nuclear test sites in Nevada, and I remembered Dad talking with Shoshone tribal elders before we went out into the desert. The Hopewell mound cities in Ohio. Mount Rushmore, which I recalled had almost literally made Dad’s head steam. I’d been about twelve then, and wondered now if I’d been Seeing some of his anger at the desecration of ancient Native holy places.
I sat, face hidden in my hands. After a moment I spread my fingers to stare between them at Sheila, who looked discomfited. “You’d no idea, had you.”
“Not a clue. Not a single…” I closed my fingers again and sat there a long damned time. Finally, and more to myself than Sheila, I said, “I’d like a do-over. I mean, in the end I’m doing okay with my life, I think. I got the guy, I got the best friend, I got the magic. I’m doing okay. But I want a do-over. I want to go back through my life and knock the giant-ass chip off my shoulder. I want to hear what Dad might’ve been trying to say to me. I want to have the nerve to ask about my mother. I want…” It didn’t really matter what I wanted. I pushed my tongue around inside my lower lip, contorting my face before finishing, “I want to know what my life would’ve been like if I hadn’t been such a jackass through most of it. It’s too damned late to be sorry, but I am anyway, Mom. You probably deserved a much better kid than me. I’m sure Dad did. So I’m sorry.”
“It may be you deserved a better mother, alanna. Shall we forgive one another while we still can?”
“Oh, sure. I’m sure I deserved a better mother than the one who chose not to hand the Master a major defeat because it might’ve risked my unborn self, or the one who gave me up to my father so the Master couldn’t keep the bead he’d had on me, or the one who gave me a magic silver necklace to protect my soul from evil, or the one who came back from the dead to lay a smackdown on the Master and kick a banshee’s ass because I was too new and feeble in my powers to do it myself. I’m sure I deserved—”
“A mother,” Sheila interrupted, and to my horror tears flooded my eyes. “Shall we forgive?” she asked again, even more quietly. I nodded, miserable with embarrassment, and she sighed before a note of playfulness came into her voice. “Now, I know we’ve little time and much to talk about, Siobhán, but there’s two things you’ve said that have my attention, so they do.”
I looked up, snuffling, to see her smile and lift a finger to touch its tip. “One—you got the guy?”
I laughed through snorting snot, which made for a very wet burbly disgusting laugh, but it was heartfelt. “My boss. My former boss. Captain Morrison? Did I mention—”
“The one who can’t tell a Corvette from a Mustang,” Sheila said, eyes solemn. Then she leaned forward confidentially and admitted, “I’m Irish, lass. I wouldn’t know the one from the other if my life depended on it.”
“Yes, but you’re Irish. He’s a red-blooded American male, it just shouldn’t be possible for him not to know.” I snuffled again and wiped my hand under my nose. Six-year-olds had more dignity than I did. “But anyway, yeah. We sort of…yeah. It’s not like you and Dad.” A thought which bent my brain. “Morrison’s not magical at all. But I don’t need any more magic in my life. He grounds me. He’s…” God. My stupid eyes filled up with tears again, for a whole different reason this time. I was turning into a regular Waterworks Wendy.
“That’s grand so,” my mother said in delight. “Congratulations, Joanne. Be happy, alanna. Be happy.”
“I hope so.” I cleared my throat. “What was the other thing?”
“Oh!” Her eyes lit up. “A magic necklace?”
“Yeah, my—your—silver choker? It’s magic. Didn’t you know that? Nuada made it for the Morrígan when he married her and it bound her to this whole fight we’re in. Hobbled her, like.” I was falling into the Irish idiom of adding “like” or “so” to the end of sentences for no apparent reason. If I stayed here more than a week I’d forget how to speak American English. “I don’t know if it’s got any other power, but reining in goddesses is a pretty good one-shot to have. And, oh, it’s, um, sort of bound to our family line. I was kind of there when it was forged and put some of my blood into the forging. The Morrígan had to bear a child to have it removed, and that child was Méabh, who made a choice to fight against her mother and our whole family has been doing it ever since. I’ve got Caitríona O’Reilly with me now. She’s taking up your mantle, she’ll be the new Irish mage, since I’m not cut out for it.”
Mother hesitated. “Caitríona? Truly?”
“Oh, yeah. She found us at the graveyard about to burn your bones and made us come up to Croagh Patrick, where Áine triggered her magic. Méabh’s having a fit because that’s not how it’s done in her estimation, but it sure looks like that’s what’s happened anyway.”
I was as unaccustomed to seeing pride on Sheila’s face as I was smiles, but there was unmistakable pride now. “Caitríona will be grand so. Oh, but she’s got so much study ahead of her, Joanne. The mage’s path isn’t an easy one. She’s a fine lass, though, strong and quick. She’ll do well. Tell her I said so, won’t you?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Yeah, of course I will. It’ll torque Méabh’s jaws, but that’ll be fun, too.”
It was Sheila’s turn to clear her throat, after which she said, “Méabh,” cautiously. “We’re the daughters of Méabh? Of the Méabh? Queen Méabh of Connacht?”
“Yep, that one.” Ah, how my life had shifted, that I could say that so casually. “She’s kind of hanging around on Croagh Patrick right now while I talk to you. Do you want to meet her?”
Mother’s eyes got very nearly as big as saucer plates, which in the garden of the soul was a dangerous kind of phrase to indulge in. “I would so,” she whispered, and I sat up straighter, pleased to be able to offer something to my mother that would mean something to her.
If I turned my attention outward, Méabh’s presence was easy to distinguish, a roaring flame of connected power. A flame which appeared to be in heated argument with Caitríona. I was going to have to separate those two, but not just yet. I softened my shields ever so slightly, extending an invitation to Méabh. She broke off fighting with Cat and spun to face me, her own shields melding until they fit the shape of doorway I offered. A moment later she stepped through, larger than life and glorious even in the garden of my mind.
Which would have been fine, except the Morrígan stalked into my garden on her heels.
Chapter Twenty
Under any other circumstances I’d have applauded the entrance. The woman was amazing, with her blue-black hair and her blue-banded biceps and the flowing, gorgeous robes that didn’t impede her fighting ability at all. Furthermore, my shields glimmered around her as she pushed through, giving her a glowing curtain of power that clung to her skin and shone silver highlights on the curve of strong muscles. Méabh was Amazonian, but fair-haired. The Morrígan seemed more like what I could look like if I was at my absolute peak of awesomeness.
My forearm burned suddenly, the half-forgotten bite awakening again. The Morrígan lay along an unforgiving path, where admiring any part of her made me all the more susceptible to her master’s powers. I clenched my right hand over the bite and squeezed hard, half hoping it would
pop, pimplelike, and all the poisoned blood would gush out.
Well. That was gross enough to wipe away the folly of admiring the bad guys. I surged to my feet, snapping, “You can’t be here,��� but I could See the path she’d taken to get in. There were too many links here: me, Sheila, Méabh and the necklace, all of us tied to the Morrígan in one way or another. That, and although a few hundred generations separated us, we had a trace of magic in common, too. It made my shields just vulnerable enough, when I’d already invited her daughter through them.
Méabh and Sheila both spun to see the interloper, Méabh with her sword drawn before she’d finished turning. I started to reach for my own sword and stopped, remembering with a pang that it and Gary were lost to time. Lost to a battle they’d fought against the woman who’d just walked into my garden as if it were her own. Smart money was on kicking her right out, but I’d never been all that smart. “Tell me what happened to Gary.”
Méabh gave me a sharp look, and Sheila a curious one, but neither of them questioned me as the Morrígan laughed, low and warm and friendly. “And why would I do that?”
Every once in a while my shit came together and I knew the right answer to a challenging question. Cool with anger, I straightened to my full height—a height which was more impressive among humans; the Morrígan didn’t tower over me the way Méabh did, but she still had me by a couple inches—and did my best to look disdainfully down my nose at a goddess. “Because I’ll let you go free from this place if you do, and otherwise I will bind you beneath the stone of this mountain as your master has been bound beneath the earth before, and you will lie with its weight pressing down on you, and its white power will stymie your magics and you will be a prisoner until the end of time.”
It was my garden. I could have counted her nose hairs, if I’d wanted to. I didn’t, but I could see, very clearly, the wave of goose bumps rise and settle on her arms. She held off a full-body shiver through will alone, but her gaze slipped sideways, betraying uncertainty before she thrust her chin out in body language that reminded me of myself. “And how would you do that?”
Méabh took a very shallow breath. She’d thrown a similar gauntlet at me not all that long ago and I’d picked it up and bitch slapped her with it. She pretty clearly expected me to do the same again.
So, frankly, did I. I walked forward, taking point between my mother and Méabh, and spoke softly. “By having three of your blood here, Morrígan, and by having a fourth no more than a shout away. By dint of you being within my garden, where the world is shaped as I will have it. By the depth of magic lent to me by a raven, who is no less my companion than yours, and of another here who is also raven-bound. Nuada, a man, was able to break your power with a circlet and a splash of my blood. What do you think four of your daughters and their ravens and all the magic at their command can do?”
The Morrígan’s gaze slipped away again. I had the distinct impression this was not going the way she’d planned. Since virtually nothing in my life went the way I planned, I had no sympathy for her at all. “Tell me,” I said again. “Tell me what happened to Gary.”
She looked back at me, snake-quick, and hissed her answer: “He is lost to you, gwyld, daughter of my daughters. Time is his enemy and you are not its master. He fought well, he fought valiantly, but in the end, what could you expect? He was old when you sent him to fight death, and death conquers us all. The banshee comes for him, as she comes for all of those you love. It will be her beginning and his end.”
I said, “Wrong answer,” and lashed a fist out to hit her in the face.
Her head snapped back with the impact, bright blood blossoming over her mouth. I’d gotten lucky and knew it. I would never get another hit like that in. But damn, it had been satisfying.
Satisfaction lasted long enough for the Morrígan to crank her head back up and throw a backhanded fist across my cheekbone. Bone shattered and healed in the same instant, a combination of pain and relief so sharp it left me dizzy. Healing myself wasn’t working so well outside my garden, not with the bite screwing up my powers, but in here I conformed to my own template. The fact that I was even aware of the werewolf bite in here was testimony to its strength: it should have been left in the physical world, rather than tag along into my perception of myself.
In the moment I spent reeling, swords clashed. Méabh had the look of a woman planning to take it to the limit, and I wondered if she and her mother had ever gone mano a mano before. Watching the viciousness with which they struck at one another, I was just as glad Sheila and I were merely estranged, not actually enemies. People of great power generally made bad enemies. When both sides were equally stacked in the mojo department, the resulting altercations were a bit on the earth-shattering side.
Or in this case, garden-shattering. Soft dirt came dislodged under their feet, the sparse green grass losing its hold. I’d put a lot of effort into getting it as lush as it was, and was childishly upset at the mess they were making. “Méabh!”
She hesitated, which would have been fatal if she hadn’t been within my garden. Silvery-blue shields bounced the Morrígan’s next blow back, leaving both of them surprised. Méabh, however, stepped away from the fight, which was what I wanted.
This place was my heart and soul. The small changes I’d made in improving it had been part and parcel of my own spirit growing up and getting it together. I’d never fought a real battle here, or needed the garden for more than that.
Not until now, anyway. I flexed, feeling the spring’s pool respond; feeling the earth under my feet respond. The Morrígan sneered and swung her sword, such a lazy open blow that her contempt for me was clear.
I crouched, catching a bit of torn-up dirt in my fingertips, and when I scooped my open hand upward again, the garden came with it. My hand, replicated at about eight times its own size in earth, rose up and seized the Morrígan. Tossed her with my gesture across the garden into one of the sturdy stone walls. I felt like the driver of one of those giant mechs, the factory machines that let an individual lift multi-ton items. The Morrígan slithered down the wall to land on her butt in the dirt, no longer looking quite so threatening. I was beginning to think she wasn’t such a badass after all. Earthen hands ready to capture her again, I growled, “My garden. My rules.”
Rage glinted in the Morrígan’s eyes and she curled her fingers up, nails suddenly long and deadly looking. “True, so true, but it was never you I was here for, daughter of my daughters. It was never you I wanted.”
Surprise held me motionless for a fateful half second. The Morrígan’s fist closed and Sheila wailed as power dragged her across the garden. Her cries grew sharper and louder, less human and more deadly, as the Morrígan buried her fingers in her hair, then hauled her, kicking and screaming, out of my garden fair.
I came awake on the mountaintop. Raven was nowhere to be seen, but that was probably okay. He’d want to scold me for having left the Dead Zone without his guidance, and in retrospect, that had probably been a stupid thing to do. Caitríona was snapping a hand in front of Méabh’s eyes, saying, “Hello? Hello? Are ye in there so?” She yelped when Méabh suddenly came to life again and batted her hand out of the way.
My great-grandmother turned on me in a barely controlled fury. “Have ye found what we needed to know? Is she held by my mother’s master? Do ye know where to take the fight to them? Are we—”
I started out saying “No” quietly and graduated to a full-fledged bellow halfway through her last question. Her mouth snapped shut and I muttered, “No,” one more time. “We were just…bonding. Well, and she sa—”
“Bonding. Bonding? It’s your own self who won’t sacrifice the woman, Joanne. What are we to do if you cannot find it in you to learn what we must know to win this battle? This is no time for bonding.”
I looked up, more neutral than I expected to be. “I know it’s not, but this is really our last chance. This has to be over by sunset one way or another.” I’d chosen sunset because midnight
was too arbitrary, too much a function of human time-keeping devices. Sunset was the end of day for older cultures, and I’d rather get it all done early than find myself holding the ball after the game ended. “Sorry I blew it. Sort of.”
I didn’t even quite know how Sheila and I had gone from sniping to bonding, but I did know I’d have regretted not having those couple minutes far more than I would ever bring myself to regret what might happen because we had. “Caitríona, do you get along with your mom?”
She startled. “What? Yes, of course I do. What kind of question is that?”
I shrugged my eyebrows. “Just hoping somebody here did, that’s all. She was glad to hear you were here, was Sheila. She says you’ll be an incredible power for good.”
Caitríona puffed up like a cardinal. “Did she, now?”
Okay, maybe I was extrapolating from what Mother had said, but the sentiment was close enough. “She’s proud of you, Cat. You’re gonna be amazing. And she says magery is about spells and preparation, so you were mostly right, Méabh. Initial explosions of power or no, Cat’s got a lot of studying to do.”
“Who’ll teach me?”
I looked off the mountain like the answer would come to me. It didn’t, so after a moment I shrugged my shoulders as well as my eyebrows. “I don’t know. Me, maybe, at least for a little while. I’ll have to find you somebody versed in magery, but I can teach you about the safeties and shielding, anyway.” Coyote would find that very ironic. Hell, I found it ironic. I also rubbed my forearm, the bite a dull itching throb. There’d been no more impulse to change since we got to the top of Croagh Patrick, but I was a little afraid of what would happen when we left. And staying there wasn’t an option. “She said we have to defeat the banshee queen.”
Méabh rounded on me again, this time in angry astonishment. “Why did ye not say so?”
