Morrigan (3 page)

“Six of Cups.”

The third card in the spread represented her
past and even her immediate present. The six of cups specifically
symbolized childhood, and she was, technically, still a child. But
she had a feeling her childhood was about to end quite abruptly.
The cups in the picture were lined up across a high stone wall,
each cup holding the memories of her past.

Her past. It was nothing but a childhood
filled with longing—longings which were perhaps about to be
fulfilled. She visualized herself taking each cup down from the
wall and pouring the troubling memories away. It was time to start
fresh. A new world was about to open up for her. She had known it
as soon as she had seen the image of her mother’s face. But what
would that world be like? What was waiting for her in the
future?

Morrigan turned over the fourth card.

“The Knight of Wands.”

The man on the horse carrying the staff had
her baffled. Not because she didn’t know its normal meaning, but
because as she stared at the card, it began to take on the physical
attributes of the knight in her drawings. He had the same long
dreadlocks, the same bewitching stare, even the same cocky smile.
The familiarity did not cancel out the meaning of the card. The
knight of wands was representative of a dark man filled with a kind
of honey-tongued charm. He was also fiery and arrogant, a man with
a definite possibility of a dark side. If the knight of wands was
coming into her life, she knew she needed to proceed with
caution.

She thought she was done with the fourth card
and was preparing to move on to the next, when once again, she
found she had lost control of her body. This time, her hands
refused to move, while her eyes forced their way back to the knight
in the card. She watched as the long-haired stranger began to move
forward—wandering over various landscapes, some high mountains,
some meadows and fields ripe for the harvest. He kept looking back
over his shoulder as though he were speaking to someone. He was on
a journey, and he wasn’t alone. Morrigan didn’t need to see his
companion to know who it must be.

So, her journey would soon begin, and she
wouldn’t be traveling alone. She would have a guide. Whether or not
that would be a good thing was another question best left to the
cards to answer. The next card told her nothing she didn’t already
know.

“The Moon,” she said. “Caution.”

It was a scary card. It warned of tricks and
illusions. The two howling wolves that stood under the moon looked
back at her menacingly, growling, showing their pointed fangs in a
snarl. For the first time since she began the reading, Danu and
Dagda made their presence known by lifting their heads and hissing
threateningly in the direction of the beasts.

Even the cats sensed it. The journey she was
about to embark on wouldn’t be all fun and family reunions. There
would be obstacles and deceit, most likely from people she thought
could be trusted. The moon was a sign that danger was certainly
awaiting her. In was an ominous omen.

“Shhhh.”

She hushed the hissing cats and gave them
each a gentle stroke to try to settle them down, though she was far
from settled herself. Again she felt the urge to stop the spread.
Her instincts were telling her no good was going to come out of
this reading. She was only going to scare herself. She should never
have done it in the first place. When would she learn that
sometimes it was best to let life play out without interference or
prophetic warnings? Then again, she knew that to be forewarned
might be her only advantage. So with more bravery than she felt,
Morrigan flipped over the final card.

“No . . . .” She gasped when she looked down
at the terrible, skeletal face. “Oh, no.”

She should have known. She thought a part of
her did know even before she glanced down at the gruesome scene—a
skeleton with a scythe in a field of body parts. With the
divination going in the direction it was, what else could be the
final outcome?

“Death,” she whispered. “Death.”

She knew that in most cases, the death card
was a symbol of personal transformation rather than literal death.
But a deeper sense of understanding told her that this time the
card was meant to be taken literally. She saw only glimpses and
shadows in her mind. Brief flashes of faces, some familiar like her
mother and the knight—some still strangers, like a beautiful,
almost angelic blonde woman in a flowing white gown. But around
them all, including herself, she saw the shadows of death.

Morrigan felt decidedly shaky as she gathered
up her tarot cards. She placed them securely in the bottom of her
bag just as she heard the door downstairs slam shut. The reading
hadn’t made everything as crystal-clear as she had hoped, but one
thing was certain. Her whole life was about to change.

“Morrigan, it’s time to get up!”

Morrigan groaned as she opened her eyes and
came face-to-face with her smiling foster sister, Lauren. As if
fate hadn’t cursed her with enough problems—it had to throw in a
perpetually upbeat, optimistic morning person as her roommate.
Lauren was the only foster kid she had ever met that was so
incredibly cheerful all the time. In a way, it was kind of
disturbing.

“It can’t be morning already,” Morrigan
muttered into her pillow. Even as she spoke, the bright sun was
beaming between the open curtains, temporarily blinding her.

“Sure it can,” Lauren insisted. “And if you
don’t hurry up, you’re going to miss the bus and you’ll have to
walk to school. Again.”

Morrigan didn’t see that as being nearly as
much of a problem as Lauren did. She actually preferred walking
alone in the fresh air to riding in a bus filled with a bunch of
noisy, obnoxious adolescents. She didn’t bother telling Lauren
that. Someone so desperate to be popular would never understand.
Instead, she tried to pull the blankets back over her head. She
knew it was pointless. Lauren was standing at the foot of her bed
with her hands on her hips, and she wasn’t going to move until
Morrigan got up. So with a groan of protest, she threw back the
covers.

She wasn’t the only one to grumble as she
lost the toasty warmth of the blankets. Danu and Dagda both whined
and slid closer together as Morrigan pulled her uncooperative body
up from the bed. She shivered as her bare legs met the crisp autumn
air. Like the ever-present shadows they were, both cats grudgingly
followed her when she finally dragged herself up and headed toward
the bathroom. They curled up on the rug, happily exchanging cat
baths as she slipped out of her nightgown and into the shower.

The steaming hot water washed away some of
Morrigan’s lingering anxiety. The tarot card reading was still
fresh in her mind, and its warnings were carefully imbedded in her
subconscious. Thinking about the reading again caused her to lose
track of time, and she spent much longer washing her hair than was
really necessary. She thought she might have even shampooed twice.
On the bright side, she hoped she would be so late getting
downstairs that she wouldn’t have to endure her household’s typical
family breakfast. The last thing she wanted was to fake a lot of
happiness first thing in the morning, especially for a bunch of
people who were really no more than strangers.

When she finally shut off the taps and
climbed out of the shower, she could already smell the sickening
scent of greasy bacon drifting up the hallway, even with the door
closed. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. She cared for meat even
less than she cared for the phony smiles of her foster parents.
Their strict Christian values didn’t allow them to voice their true
feelings, but Morrigan knew they didn’t really like her. In fact,
they were probably a little afraid of her. It didn’t bother her
though. After seventeen years and fifteen different foster homes,
she was used to people not liking her without any valid reason.
Somehow, she had learned to live without parental love, and she
believed she was stronger because of it.

“Hurry up, Morrigan!” Lauren rapped loudly on
the bathroom door. Morrigan jumped and dropped the comb she had
been trying to run through her tangled hair. “Your breakfast is
getting cold.”

“I’ll be down in a minute!”

Morrigan rolled her eyes as she pulled her
towel more tightly around her body. She bent forward to gather her
still sopping hair up in a second towel, wrapping it toga-style.
All the while she wondered why Lauren had made it her personal
mission to make sure she always got to breakfast on time.

“Mooorrriiiiigaaaaaaan.”

Morrigan snapped her head up so fast she was
sure she must have given herself whiplash. The voice that called
her name definitely didn’t belong to Lauren. It was so strangely
accented and wisplike. It hardly sounded human at all. And if that
wasn’t scary enough, Morrigan was certain the whisper had come from
directly behind her. She could still feel the icy breath of its
owner lingering on the back of her neck. She had the distinct
feeling she was being watched, and she gave an involuntarily
shiver. She might have thought she was insane, except for the fact
that the cats had obviously heard it too. They both stood hissing,
with teeth barred and their fur standing on end.

“Who’s there?” Morrigan demanded and hoped no
one was waiting outside the bathroom door. If they didn’t think she
was crazy already, they certainly would if they heard her carrying
on a conversation with herself.

“Mooorrriiiiigaaaaaaan.”

Morrigan gasped in surprise. She hadn’t
really expected any response. She took a few involuntary steps
backward and nearly stumbled into the bathtub. The voice echoed
through the room for the third time.

“Mooorrriiiiigaaaaaaan.”

This time the sound had moved. It was further
away, coming from near the sink. The cats’ hisses had escalated
into long, deep growls, and they inched closer to her protectively.
Morrigan reached down and patted them absently, which did nothing
to calm them down. Strangely enough, Morrigan realized she wasn’t
really afraid. Maybe it was because strange and unusual things had
been happening to her all her life. At this point, it was just
second nature. Or maybe it was because she knew in her heart
whoever was calling her name meant her no harm.

“Morrigan . . . come to me!”

There was urgency in the voice she hadn’t
sensed before. That urgency seemed to transfer to Morrigan by
osmosis. She looked frantically around the room, trying to find—to
find what? A ghost? She wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking
for. She just knew she needed to find it quickly, before it was
gone.

“Hurry, Morrigan . . . Come . . . !”

She followed the sound, not with her ears,
but with her spirit. She swallowed hard, untangled herself from the
cats that had wound themselves around her ankles, and took a few
tentative steps forward. Sensing where the voice was drawing her,
she moved toward the mirror, which was still mist-covered from the
steaming shower.

“Morrigan, I don’t have much time.”

Fighting back the sudden wave of panic that
threatened to consume her, Morrigan used the back of her hand to
wipe away the moisture from the mirror. At first, between the glare
of the lights and the beads of water that stubbornly clung to the
glass, she thought she saw only her own blurry reflection. Even
before she noticed the lines around the eyes and the strange and
unfamiliar clothes of the mirror image, the lips on the face began
to speak, though Morrigan’s own lips remained frozen in shock. She
gasped, startled, and took a few steps back.

“Morrigan . . . my daughter.”

One simple word and Morrigan felt an entire
range of extremely varied emotions. Fear that it might not be real.
That it might be some trick of a neglected mind desperate for
attention. Sadness for all the years they had lost that they should
have been together. Even anger because her mother hadn’t tried
harder to prevent the separation. There were a million questions
Morrigan wanted to ask, first and foremost being why. Why after
seventeen years had her mother chosen this moment to make her
appearance? What did she want from her? The mysterious woman didn’t
give her the chance to voice any questions.

“Morrigan,” the reflection whispered, “I must
speak quickly. The magic that allows us to communicate between
worlds won’t last much longer. Listen to me, Daughter. I sent you
to this world to protect you. Now, your aunt has started a war that
can only end with you by my side. It is time, Morrigan. It is time
for you to come home.”

“Home?” Morrigan echoed. She had never known
a place that felt like home and wondered if such a place could
really exist. “Where is that? How am I supposed to find you?”

Even before her mother spoke, the answer came
to her wordlessly, in a vision of the “Knight of Wands”—her knight,
with the long dreadlocks and mischievous smile. Her dark man was on
his way, and together they would begin the journey, just as the
tarot cards had foretold. A journey, she reminded herself before
she got too excited, which would almost definitely end in
death.

“I’m sending someone to you,” her mother told
her. “A guide—I’ve given him the magic necessary to bring you here.
But be careful, Morrigan. Trust no one. You have many enemies, but
you hold the greatest power. Trust no one . . . no one . . . no one
. . . .”

The final world echoed and reverberated off
the high bathroom ceiling over and over, sounding almost like a
strange rhythmic chant. The voice continued to whisper in her ear
until she felt dizzy and lightheaded. She had to close her eyes for
a moment and grab hold of the edge of the sink to keep her unsteady
legs from giving way beneath her.

“Morrigan, come on! Other people need to use
the facilities!”