Chapter One
Stepping through the crowd of black and burgundy cloaks, I made my way to the cliff’s edge where I could begin my new life. I pulled my robe tighter, trying to keep out the spring breezes which cut across the desert mesas. My bare toes were only inches away from the edge and reminded me of the night’s ceremony. I leaned forward and looked over the side of the black cliffs and into the dark canyon below. The churning water was heard but unseen.
“It must be done,” Branna muttered next to me. Her wispy black hair fluttered from the hood’s opening as though trying to break free.
I fidgeted with the ties of my grey cloak, unable to make eye contact with my oldest sister. I merely stared at the fabric between my boney fingers, wishing my other sister, Bridget, was by my side tonight instead of Branna. I didn’t want to look into Branna’s dark eyes—eyes which always sent shivers down my back. Every time I tried to look her in the eyes, I couldn’t decipher between pupil and iris; they were like small black stones encased in ivory.
“Morgan,” Branna’s cold voice addressed me again, “we have all waited long enough for you to take your post, and with the unrest in the northern realm, we must proceed with haste. It is time.”
I knew all of this.
But what made standing there and having to just listen even worse was that Branna knew that I recognized all of this. Still, we both understood that it must be said. I must be reminded. I must be treated as though I didn’t realize the seriousness of the night’s events.
It was ceremony. It was tradition. It was my only option.
“I know,” I whispered, head still hanging, hoping she wouldn’t say anything else to make me feel even more self-conscious.
Branna’s cold fingertips lifted my chin, and her shadowy gaze met mine. I wanted to look away, but I told myself to stay strong and remember that this is what Father would have wanted. He would have expected me to step up and accept responsibility.
“Then let’s finish this,” Branna said, her voice resolute and brassy.
I slowly nodded, suddenly aware of my pale, freckled cheeks burning hot within the sable hood.
Branna carefully backed away from the mesa’s edge, passing the audience of cloaked figures who stood as witnesses to my passage. I stared back at the familiar crowd, hoping I could believe in myself as much as my village seemed to.
Or maybe they showed up out of duty.
Branna made her way back to where our other sister, Bridget, stood on the stone platform, but she was stopped by a bulky arm that reached out from the crowd. It was Burke. I would know his black, tattered robe anywhere. He was the man who used to be our foster-father.
He held Branna’s elbow and whispered fiercely, but I couldn’t make out any of the words. His eyes shifted about the clan, as though he was making sure no one else was listening. But I could see his lips drawn tight and sense the anger in his voice.
I didn’t have to hear him to know that he was concerned about my future, convinced that Branna was not always looking out for my best interest; he had been telling others in our village about his worries. Gossip quickly makes its way around Finias, our small community in the Palouse hills.
Branna briskly shook off his grip and stared at his hand as if it were diseased. Her voice rose so everyone could hear. “That is why I’m taking care of her instead of you, Burke. I never fail!”
“I hope for all of our sakes that you’re right!” he boomed back from under his ragged hood.
Branna turned her back on him, continuing to the stone platform where family traditionally waits during the Incantation. She shouted back one last jeer, “Hope does not get anything done!”
Burke did not reply, but I could see it on the edge of his lips. Instead, he apologetically looked up at me from under his cloak. Soon his head became just another one among the cluster of Sidhe.
At the front of the crowd stood Onora, my mentor for the past few months, decked in her burgundy robe. She smiled up at me and nodded, trying to get me back on track with the steps of the Incantation. I remembered all of the advice she gave, the steps which must be taken, and the words which must be spoken. I stood and waited for what I knew would come.
Suddenly, Onora fell to her knees and began the wailing song. Her body rocked, and her voice echoed the discordant melody, a mix of reverie and mourning. The cracks of her age-worn face smoothed and puckered with each bar of the ancient refrain until it came to the end. She fell prostrate on the arid soil, arms outstretched, eyes transfixed on me standing at the cliff’s edge.
Huddled shrouds stared on in silence, each face as pale and vacant as the next.
I turned my back on the crowd, once again facing the canyon. I threw back my grey hood, bitter air stinging my cheeks. For a moment I hesitated, my wind-blasted face struck by second-guessing what Onora had told me would happen. The height, darkness, and loneliness crept with icy fingers up my legs and arms.
I can’t do this, I desperately thought.
I remembered the oath I accepted, as did my twin sisters and all of those before me. Branna and Bridget took the same chance on their day of Incantation seven years ago.
But they’re so different from me.
I shrugged away the tears that began to collect, ignoring the drumming in my chest which begged me to run away and back to the safety of home.
There is no use fighting what you can’t change. That’s what Mother always said. Father was the opposite—he thought anything was possible.
Taking one deep breath, I gazed at the full moon. I called out before I could change my mind, “Aistrím—préachán!”
Not even taking a look back, I dove off the cliff’s edge, my heart leaping in mid-air before my body plummeted toward the rocks below.
I didn’t have to see it to know what was happening up at the cliff—Onora had told me what would happen.
The crowd would converge at the edge of the bluff, some aghast, others peering expectantly over the lip of black rock. Branna and Bridget would be the only ones who stood back atop the ceremonial stone platform. Branna with her arms crossed, her brow pensive; Bridget holding her hands clasped to her chest in anticipation, gazing hopefully at the full moon. All present would be held in time, breath squelched by the silence of the mesa. Waiting, anticipating.
My cloak rustled and spun about me in the second that flew by as I tumbled toward the canyon rocks. Everything was darkness. Something wasn’t right. I shouldn’t have been falling anymore.
Onora would be standing at the edge in her burgundy cloak with her arms out to each side, holding the rest of the group from the edge of the chasm. Her head would slowly tilt from one shoulder to the other, fingers drumming the air as if they could feel the winds change. Her arms would fall down to her sides, head hanging down as if she were about to crumple to dust.
I patted my sides, frantically searching for an answer as to why I was still free-falling. I said the words. I said them the exact way I had practiced. Aistrím—préachán! The words ran through my mind again, making sure they were the right ones. Did my voice betray me? Did I put an accent in the wrong place?
I shut my eyes, ready for the impact which would end my sixteen-year stay on Earth.
But then my legs began to shake, tingles chased up my limbs, and my heart raced faster than before. My cloak was gone and my long black hair fluttered one last time.
And then I stopped falling.
Bridget would be wiping a tear from her eye and go back to staring at the moon, her eyes tracing its craters in comforting monotony. Branna would be readying herself for action in case my ceremony turned tragic.
But she didn’t have to leap to the rescue.
Onora cried from the ravine’s edge, “She’s done it!” Her robe flurried as she turned round the crowd, her arthritic arms raised in triumph. “She’s done it! The little waif’s done it!” Her voice rattled through the night, beckoning the crowd to join her in shouts and hurrahs.
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Bridget’s face relaxed into an approving smile while Branna stood back in stoic pride.
Onora screeched again, “Here she comes!”
From the depths of the caverns I flew like a shadow, mounting up the canyon wall at tremendous speed. As I neared the top of the plateau, the crowd drew back in awe. Suspended in mid-flight, I gave one caw to the onlookers, my feathers shining obsidian, and then I took off in crow-form like a dark comet across the night sky.
With the name of my human ward in my head, I flew west, instinct taking over as I tracked. I stopped to perch on a scrubby tree, collecting my thoughts.
I can’t believe I did it!
For a second I thought that I was going to die, but there I was, in bird-form, just like Onora told me it would be.
Maybe there are other possibilities for my future. Maybe not everything is as it is written!
My thoughts were interrupted by the rustle of branches above me. I rotated and tilted my head to see a dark figure looming above me.
“Nice work, Morgan,” he said, his figure just an outline backlit by the moon.
I knew his gruff voice anywhere.
“Thanks, Burke,” I shyly replied.
His owl-form hopped down a few branches until he sat next to me. “And I’m not just saying that.”
I didn’t say anything. This wasn’t part of the plan. I was supposed to be tracking the human who the Inner Ring appointed as my first assignment. Burke wasn’t supposed to be here.
“Your sisters are conflicted,” he continued.
“No kidding,” I replied with a slight chuckle. Conflicted was an understatement. Bridget and Branna didn’t usually see things the same way. “I heard your little scuffle with Branna.”
“Ah, yes, sorry about that. I didn’t really think she was going to make a scene.” Burke shifted on the branch, his wide eyes darting around. “I think you should know that I never wanted to shirk my responsibility for you. Your father told me to keep watch over you, and I intend to do so—even if Branna kicked me out of your place.”
It had been a year since Branna told Burke to leave the mound at Finias. She was always chastising me in front of him and Bridget, and one day he just couldn’t take it anymore. Words were exchanged—things which neither one should have said.
He wanted to take me with him, but Branna would not allow it. The Inner Ring listened to both of their cases and sided with Branna because she is my blood-relation. Since then, I’ve only seen him in passing or brief encounters at the market.
“Everyone’s talking about the prophecy,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. I was so sick of hearing about some ancient prophecy foretold by a crazy seer. I knew the “Prophecy of the Thousand-Year Sidhe” by heart and quickly ran its lines through my head.
Blood denotes dark induction
of circling evils looming.
The Gatekeeper’s abduction,
begins our new Queen’s blooming.
Cry fierce calls, crow carrion!
Millennia shall she reign.
Bright and dim souls ferry on
to Otherworld and remain.
O’er the ebbing multitude
on bristling equine keening,
one who breaks death’s quietude
shall ripen souls for gleaning.
Cries incite the battleground
where Sidhe fend back Hell’s phantoms
and hero’s faint death rattle sounds --
no penance for soul’s ransom.
When war is at conclusion,
bodies festering in mud,
she’ll break through all illusion --
pale arms bathed in Keeper’s blood.
Burke spoke again, breaking my trance. “When your sisters did not fulfill the prophecy, you know that everyone looked to you, Morgan.”
“I know,” I muttered. I knew it more than anyone else because I was the one who had to live through all the whispers and rumors around Finias.
“And there’s something else.” His feet pattered nervously on the branch. “In the human papers there has been a report of a kelpie sighting near the Northern Gateway. Something is amiss, and I think it only fair that you know what your sister has been saying.”
“Honestly, Burke, I don’t think I need you telling me anything. She’s always been more than willing to let me know exactly what she thinks.”
Burke chuckled, the branch bobbing under his weight. “True, but she’s concerned. When she was your age, she was already done with her complete Incantation period and serving the Inkers. She believes that you need to step forward and take your place. Then maybe this whole business of the prophecy and troubles in the north will be resolved.”
I shrugged. I didn’t believe in this prophecy any more than I believed in my father ever returning to Finias. “I guess we’ll see,” I muttered.
“Just think about it, Morgan. That’s all.” The branch bent one last time as Burke took off. “I’ll be keeping watch, even if it is from a distance,” he called back to me as he flew back home.
I watched as his owl-form faded into the night, and suddenly I felt so alone and yet so free. I wished no one would watch me at this point. I was so sick of having everyone picking apart every move I made.
Why can’t I just go back to being plain old Morgan?
I leapt from my perch and continued on my way, in search of answers, unsure as to what lay for me beyond the desert hills.