Chapter Twenty
I swept into the Chapel, smoothly shifting from crow form to human, stepping along the stone floor with easy transition.
Muirna was the first to rush up to me, her eyes wide and searching for answers. “Well?” she asked.
“I did it. It’s done.” My face was blank. I didn’t know how to feel anymore. I knew it was my duty to keen Aidan’s death, but now that I completed the first call, I felt empty inside. It was as though a part of me died the moment my bloody-tears shed and my soul screamed to the uppermost clouds.
“Done is a bit of an overstatement, young Sidhe,” Muirna sneered. “One complete, two more to be done. Then we shall see what you are really made of.”
“I guess,” I mumbled, walking to the third ring of seats.
The rest of the clan waited patiently for my return, and they now watched with anticipation as I took my place at the gold cushion I accepted just days ago. I held the spot as a Transfigurine in training, but there was no golden head scarf to accompany my cloak yet.
Muirna was back at the center, having raised the massive orb to the ceiling so she could stand in the eye of the clan. “Sisters and brothers,” her voice rang through the hall with serpentine smoothness. “Our young colleague has completed the first keen!”
The crowd surged with whispers of approval.
“As we all know, Beltane fast approaches,” she continued. “Soon the gate will be fully open, but there will be no one to maintain order. The old guard will eternally rest with our relations in the Otherworld and their replacements must be put in place. Many have volunteered to do this themselves, and it is true that we will need all of your assistance. However—”
More murmuring interrupted.
“I knew it was the Chain. Always meddlin’,” grumbled Hazel, an old seer who sat behind me.
Muirna held up her wrinkled hand and raised her voice, “However!” Her voice echoed off the walls and the clan was silent once more. “As I was saying… However, young Morgan was selected by the Kelpie. While many of us may go to assist, it is the Kelpie who has an obvious advantage in reaching the gate to the Otherworld. It is for this reason that we must support the young Sidhe in completing her keen so that she in turn can ride with the Kelpie if needed.”
I looked over at Burke who was only a few seats away. He turned his head slightly toward me and nodded his approval, his mousey-brown hair bobbing slightly. It was just what I needed. Burke spoke with the same wisdom as Father, and I trusted his judgment.
“Training with Hector shall not be disturbed. The boy’s second keen shall take place tomorrow. Morgan, you may be excused.”
I stood to leave, bowed to my elders, and shuffled to the door. Before leaving the Chapel, I heard Muirna’s next item of business. “As for the Leanan. Any word?”
I closed the door. I had too much to worry about as-is, let alone join in on another search party.
I reached the field outside my family’s mound and saw the familiar man in black waiting for me in the center. Hector smiled and quickly approached, spanning the distance in seconds with his massive stride. He swept me up in an enormous hug, and I could swear that my bones were going to break.
“So glad you’re back and safe!” His voice sounded genuine to as he carefully set me down on the ground and helped re-straighten my robe.
“What else would you expect?” I tried to feign a cheerful expression, as though everything was part of a normal day in the life of a Sidhe.
True, the keening was fairly normal, except for the confrontation with Holly shortly before. But Aidan’s aunt was a crackpot—a woman who talked to birds. She couldn’t be much of a threat.
But then there was the never-ending meeting after each keen and the implications of the Northern Gateway being breached. Beyond that, there was some crazy creature on the loose, and I was working with a Kelpie. Things were definitely far from normal.
He smiled down at me. “Just think. Soon you will enter your middle stage and live as a full-grown Sidhe for over nine-hundred years! Do you understand how miraculous that is?”
This guy seems seriously delusional, I thought.
“Ummm, Hector?” I laughed. For once I knew something that he didn’t about Otherworld creatures. “Ban Sidhe only go through middle stages for two hundred years, not nine-hundred. Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Okay, miss First-Non-Trained-Transfigurine-in-Five-Centuries, or do you prefer that I call you your Highness once again?” He stared at me, completely serious.
“I already told you that all of the prophecy stuff is a bunch of garbage. We’ve heard it for so long that it’s getting old. I mean, supposedly there’s a Thousand-Year Sidhe ruling right now, but have I ever seen her? No. Have I heard stories about her? Yes, but they’re completely fanciful legends.”
“And you suppose that Her Highness would show Herself to you at all times? You think that She would be here all of the time?” Hector laughed. “I forget how young you are sometimes, and naïve. I’ve met Her. I’ve spoken with Her. Who do you think sent me here in the first place?” His eyes narrowed, searching my face.
I looked around uneasily, not quite sure how to respond. I had always believed the legends to be that – simply stories with sprinklings of truth blended in to keep children believing in something greater than that which they saw and heard themselves.
“The Queen of the Sidhe cannot reside here – you know that. So, why would you ever see Her? She has enough to do in shepherding the world’s spirits to the Otherworld, and that’s quite the task. And I’m afraid it will be your task very shortly.”
I stared right into his red eyes and coldly responded, “Then if she is real like you say she is, why are my mother and father still gone? If she watches over us, then why hasn’t she found them and brought them back?”
Hector’s expression softened. “I don’t know everything that She does. Maybe She has Her reasons for letting bad things happen in the world. And honestly, Morgan, haven’t you ever asked yourself if your parents chose to go away?”
I couldn’t believe he said it, even when the words came out and stung my heart. Sure, I’d thought about Mother going away on her own free will. She had been acting strangely right before disappearing and was not the same cheerful person she had always been. But Father? No way. There was no way he would have abandoned us with no immediate family to look after us. He had promised me that so many times after Mother went missing.
I shook my head, the tears coming to my eyes, my nose suddenly running. “No,” was all I said. I didn’t owe Hector any explanation. I wasn’t required to share my innermost thoughts and feelings with this insensitive beast. It was only my job to work with him to fix what was going wrong. That was it.
“I’m sorry. Obviously I’ve upset you.” He sounded genuine. “My animalistic side often does that. I speak before thinking. You must think I’m an absolute dolt.” He ran his hand through his slick hair in frustration. “I just want you to believe in the possibility that you are She. You don’t understand the power of belief.”
“No, there you’re wrong.” I wiped the tears off my cheeks and stolidly walked up to face him, staring up at his chiseled jaw and bloody eyes. “I do understand faith. That’s why you’re going to change forms, we’re going to practice until the sun goes down, and you’re going to take me to the Otherworld to search for my parents.”
Hector smiled wide. “I like the way you think!” he laughed. The ground shook, and I took a step back, watching in awe as the floodwaters came from the top of his head, and he was quickly transformed into the water stallion.
For hours we rode through the sagebrush and navigated rocky bluffs. We kept our distance from the waters, focusing on keeping our connection solid and clear. Decisions were made in tandem, our minds melding and bodies forming fluid motions in sync.
“If only we could fly,” I laughed. The dry desert air flew through my hair and whipped at my robe as we galloped across the l
andscape.
Perhaps we could if you tried, Hector’s voice flowed through my mind. Remember, you’re a Transfigurine.
It was tempting to think of wrapping my arms about his neck, and my legs stretching to wrap around his belly. Could it be possible to then extend wings from my back and give us the power of flight? Then the memory of Tallulah’s deformity came back.
Sometimes chances are worth it and other times they are not.
“I think I’m ready to try it now,” I said.
Flying? Then we shall try it!
“No. Water.” Hector’s frame trembled as he slowed from a gallop, but still I persisted. “Come on! There’s a small river not far from here – not even deep enough for you to get up to your flanks. We can just try it out and see what happens. If anything weird happens, I’ll just fly away like last time.”
Hector came to a stop. His mind was a flurry of thoughts thrown at my brain, Hunger… ford the waves… capture…
“You can do it, Hector. I believe in you as much as you believe that I can be some Queen of the Sidhe.” I patted his wet mane, water sparkling on my hand as I drew it away.
I knew that it was now or never. I wasn’t sure that nothing bad would happen, but it would have to come to this at some point. Would it be better to just delay and wait until the day we had to go under water? If we couldn’t master a stream now, then what would happen at a lake?
Very well, he finally responded.
I guided him to a stream that glided through a small patch of honey locusts. We came to the edge, and everything was just fine… except for Hector’s skin which kept twitching as if he was an ordinary horse trying to get rid of annoying flies. I patted his fore flank. “You’ll be just fine. Take one step in.”
His head shook, his mane whipping around in the air, nearly tossing me from his back.
No! No! His insistency hit my brain like a ball peen hammer.
“Hector!” I shouted. “Step in the water! Now!”
I had enough of the delays, the excuses, and most of all, the fear. I wanted it to be now or never. Either I would die right here, never becoming some mystical being, or I would continue on my journey and see what would happen with my life.
His head stopped thrashing, but I could still hear the heavy breath from his flaring nostrils. I closed my eyes and grabbed hold of his mane, ready to follow him into the water, even if it meant to my death.
His hoofs clicked against a rock near the water’s edge. Then a slight splosh as the other hoof submerged. Then another and another until we were in the middle of the trickling stream. I opened up my eyes, looking around me. Hector was still in horse form, I was still on his back, and the water was rushing by.
“We did it, Hector!” I patted the side of his neck. “Do you feel anything?”
No hunger or thirst! It is as though I cannot even recognize you are there. I mean, I know you are there and I can feel your weight, but my body is not reacting. It is as though you have been grafted onto me!
”Well, ready to try something a bit harder?”
Absolutely.
I guided him down the stream, Hector’s hooves sending spray high into the air as we trotted toward the stream’s destination. In minutes we were there. My secret safe place. And now I was sharing it with someone who wasn’t even a Ban Sidhe.
“Down there,” I instructed. I pointed to where the water fell through the stone opening and into a dimly lit pool in the cavern. “That’s where we’ll know.”
I dismounted, stood on the bank, and waited for Hector to shift back. There was no way he would fit through the slim opening in his full horse form. He stood, transformed at the lip of the cavern, staring down into the darkness. His face was uncertain. He couldn’t soar into it in bird form like I could so easily accomplish.
He turned to me. “What do you suggest?”
“Let me try.” I nudged him aside and squatted to look through the hole.
I didn’t have the stone table here, so I’d have to rely on what little training Tallulah gave me. My mind cleared as I closed my eyes, and then the chemistry began.
I lowered myself into the hole, my hands clinging to the edge of dry rock.
“What are you doing?” Hector shouted from above, barely audible over the rushing water right next to my head.
I simply ignored him. I only had a few seconds before I figured I would lose my grip and fall.
Serpentine. Serpent. Serpentine. Snake with claws. The image came clear in my mind—the head and claws of a lizard, but the body of a snake. Serpentine. Lizard’s feet. I saw the image of a body stretching to the floor of the cave. Spindly legs formed.
My fingertips slightly slipped as my mind focused on the image. The image faltered as I regained my grip on the rock, but I closed my eyes tighter. Concentrating on the form. Finally, I saw the creature complete in my mind. In the next instant my body was cold and tight. I opened my eyes to see my snake body stretching the distance between the opening and the floor.
“Quickly, Hector!” I hissed through reptilian teeth.
At first his face was that of horror, but who could blame him for seeing a young girl transform into a mutated creature? He had always been the one changing shape and surprising others – not the other way around. But next he was quite amused, even impressed as he grabbed hold of my neck. His weight was unbearable, but I gripped with all my strength to see that he made it safely inside. I gritted my teeth and kept the image of my lizard form centered in my mind.
Hector slid down as quickly as he could and landed with a thud on the cave floor.
In seconds, I let go of the rock, my body morphing from slithering green into the porcelain of my natural skin and the grey of my robes. Down to proper size and shape I shrunk until I was back to normal. Now in Sidhe form, I stood over Hector, a smile stretched across my face.
“Okay, now I truly believe!” he chuckled as I helped him to his feet.
“I can’t even believe I did it!” My blushing cheeks showed hidden pride.
“I think there are many more great things to come from you, your Highness.” His eyes turned to the pool of water. “You ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be!”
Again, the rushing waters, the transforming, but now he was his other form. His prehistoric body flopped into the water – fins, tail, and brontosaurus neck. He circled the small pool and then his head emerged, snorting water out of his nostrils.
“Still ready?” But his eyes were no longer red at all – they were green. A peaceable sea green.
I nodded and stepped to the water’s edge, the plesiosaur’s head towering above me. I grabbed hold of his slick neck, and down he dove.