Chapter Sixteen
‘I’m sorry. What?’ I stare at Meg.
She’s beaming. ‘The Morrigan, Michael. It’s the Morrigan!’
‘The goddess of death?’ The words feel too big for my mouth.
‘Well, death and war. This makes so much sense.’
I scratch my forehead. ‘Oh, does it? Who is she?’
Meg lets out an exasperated sigh. ‘So, what do you know about the Morrigan?’
‘I…’
She rolls her eyes. ‘You can say nothing.’
‘Nothing.’
‘And the Tuatha Dé Danann?’
The Irish words echo in my ears like a foreign language. I shrug off the guilt and shake my head. ‘Too wa de…what?’
‘We need to start discussing my tuition fee soon.’ Meg rolls back her shoulders.
‘The Tuatha Dé Danann are essentially the ancient gods of Ireland. They arrived from the north seas with powers and battled to rule the land. One of the most powerful of them all is the goddess of death and war, the Morrigan.’ She raises her chin.
The red light from below throws shadows over her eyes and for a moment her head is like a crimson skull floating in the darkness.
I catch my breath. ‘Stop!’
‘What?’ Meg frowns.
Behind her, the photos of the woman in black hang on the line like storm clouds in a night sky.
‘Can we talk about this somewhere else?’ I say. ‘I’m feeling a bit claustrophobic.’
Meg’s garden is lined with towering trees, framing the mountain beyond.
The back section is filled with ferns, with long grass and wildflowers dotted throughout.
We’re sitting in a clearing on two once-white wrought-iron chairs in front of a shed with sage-green peeling paint.
It couldn’t be more different to the other houses I’ve been to on the estate. ‘This is so…’
‘Messy?’
I laugh. ‘No, wild.’
‘It was the garden that made us want to move here. Dad was meant to take care of it, but he’s been busy.’
‘Oh?’
Meg shrugs. ‘Anyway, I prefer a wild garden.’
There’s a rustle from the trees and a crow caws loudly.
Meg smiles. ‘That’s one of their animals, you know.’
‘What?’
‘The Morrigan. They often appear as crows.’
My chest tightens. ‘For real?’
‘Yeah, ravens too. Though you don’t get many of them up here. Crows, though…’
They’re everywhere on the estate. Their caws have woken me up every morning. ‘You’re not seriously saying that those birds are…’
‘The therianthropic manifestation of the goddess of death?’
‘Seriously, these words!’
The crow caws again and a memory flickers. ‘Oh shit.’
‘What?’
The screech of the herring gull echoes in my ears as it looked up at the… ‘The black feather in my vision. Could it be a crow?’
Meg’s eyes widen. ‘It was them. This is amazing.’
‘Is it?’
‘They’re trying to communicate with you, Michael!’
‘Wait, they? Is the Morrigan non-binary?’
‘What?’ She laughs then stops. ‘No! I mean, who knows, right? If they were, then that definitely would have been stamped out by early Christian retellings.’ She leans forward. ‘No, it’s “they” because the Morrigan is a tripartite goddess.’
‘Sorry?’
‘She has three aspects.’
My head is hurting. There’s so much information being rammed inside it there’s no room for any more. I swallow. ‘So, there are three goddesses of…’
‘Death and war, yeah.’ She takes out her phone and starts tapping. ‘There’s actually quite a few goddesses of death in Irish mythology. Like six, I think.’
‘That feels like a lot of death.’
She flicks her hand in the direction of the city. ‘When in Rome.’
‘Fair. How do you know all of this?’
‘My nan taught me. So, yes, the Morrigan is the actual goddess. But she appears in stories as three different goddesses: Badb, Macha and Nemain. There are maybe others too, but that’s the three I know. They’re all the Morrigan, but are, like, different aspects of her.’
She passes me her phone and there’s an article on them, accompanied by an image of a woman with pale skin and long hair. Dark and red, like the woman in my photos. Like the woman in my dreams.
‘So, are there one or three of them? I still can’t get my head round this.’
Meg bites her lip. ‘I mean, we don’t really know because so much of the mythology was wiped out. But, yeah, she is multiple and one at the same time. It’s ancient magic – you probably aren’t meant to get your head round it.’ She tilts her head. ‘Though maybe you need to.’
I shudder. ‘OK, but for the purpose of not being overwhelmed by dealing with three goddesses can we just refer to her as one?’
‘I guess.’
‘So kind.’ I rub my temple. ‘So, is she like the grim reaper? Is someone going to die?’ I’m surprised by how calm I sound.
Meg shakes her head. ‘She’s not really like that.
We don’t have that type of thing in Irish mythology, no Charon or Hel or anything.
The Morrigan might prepare you for death, but she’s a goddess with the power to kill, start wars, inspire warriors and terrify soldiers, shapeshift and also… ’ Her mouth drops open.
Even though I’ve only known her a week, this is never a good sign with Meg. ‘What?’
‘Prophecy.’ She starts tapping on her phone again. ‘One of her aspects is famous for the gift of prophecy. Yes, Badb. The battle crow. She was a seer, a prophetess and… Oooh!’
She turns the phone towards me. There’s an image of a woman in a green dress, mouth twisted in fury as she screams and leaps from the tip of a spear. Below is a line of text that makes my heart do a death drop.
Badb (pronounced Bive) is often associated with the legend of the banshee.
‘So, it is about death? Someone in my family’s going to die?’
Mum, Nanny Bet and Cormac flash through my head.
‘I don’t think so. Also, all your visions are of the past, right? Not prophecies of the future. She must want you to see something. To know something.’
‘But what?’
Meg shrugs. ‘A message. A secret. A warning. The point is, she’s trying to get your attention. She wants to talk to you and she’s using the past to do it.’
The crow caws again and I see it now, sitting on a branch at the top of the nearest tree. I’ve always loved those birds for their intelligence, the hidden colours in their inky black feathers. The way they watch us.
The way they watch me?
It lets out three calls, its head pulsing forward and beak open, before it flies off, over our heads and the roof of Meg’s house.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘Assuming your theory is correct, the goddess of death and war has given me a power to see the past to find something out.’
‘Yes, it makes the most sense.’
I exhale. ‘I think we need to work out why me, right? I’m not…
’ My cheeks burn. ‘I’m not special. I’m not even from here.
’ Meg sighs and tilts her head to the side.
I try to put a stop to her display of pity.
‘This isn’t a low self-esteem thing. I mean, I’m literally not from here.
I’m not properly Irish. You said so yourself. ’
Meg rolls her eyes. ‘Well, that’s not true. Firstly, I was being a bit bitchy, but you were born here. You’re an Irish person that moved to a different country. That’s kind of our thing. You are therefore, in fact, incredibly Irish.’
I laugh. ‘Still though, why me? Why would the Morrigan choose me and my dad?’
‘Because she wants you to know something. Just think of what you’ve seen.’
It makes a twisted sort of sense in this new world I seem to be living in.
Old me is still wanting to roll his eyes at all this talk of goddesses, but I can’t deny what’s been going on.
I might not feel special, but what is happening to me is not, to the best of my knowledge, something that most nearly seventeen-year-olds experience.
Unless it’s some quirk of puberty Dad left out of our excruciating conversation about becoming a man.
‘If my dad had this power too, maybe they want me to find him. Maybe they’re helping me do that?’
Meg frowns. ‘I mean, they aren’t known for their humanitarian work, what with the inciting wars and so on. Though she does influence heroes on their journey. Your family must be important to them in some way.’ She pauses and her eyes narrow. ‘What are you, Michael Kenny?’
Goosebumps prickle my arms.
I think back to the picture of the woman – the Morrigan. I guess I’d better get used to calling her that. I think of her enraged in the Blitz photo, her sadness over the baby and her anger beside the girl on the street.
‘I hear what you’re saying about it not being a signal of someone dying, but what if it’s a warning? What if my dad’s in danger?’ I push away a sudden mental picture of him calling out in pain. ‘If this leads to him in some way, then we have to try and work out what she wants with me.’
Meg stands. ‘Ready to go check out the photos?’
Meg’s room is back to normal now that the red light is out and the curtains are open. She’s downstairs making a tea with her mum, who just got home from work. I checked she wouldn’t mind us being up here alone and Meg just laughed.
I’m staring at a collage Meg has made from blood red wildflowers when I get a text from an unknown number.
Hey, what’s up?
Sorry who’s this?
Paul – sorry lol
I nearly drop the phone.
Oh hi, yeah good, you?
Not bad. Thanks for last night –
for the chat
No problem – it was nice to hang
out
It was
My fingers hover to reply but then I see him typing again.
Want to do something later?
My cheeks burn at the thought of what I want to do. I hear Meg coming up the stairs and turn my mind to what I’m here to do.
Goddess. Photos. Dad.
I can’t get distracted by a dumb crush on another only potentially bi-curious, tanned, flirtatious, funny and totally hot walking emotional tsunami.
Sure, I’d like that
Who am I kidding?
Me 2 – come to mine?
Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!
Cool
Great, looking forward to it hehe
What the fuck?
This is flirting, right? Like, actual flirting. He hehe’d me!
My thumb sweats as I send the wink emoji.
‘You all right?’ Meg stands in front of me. ‘You look a bit panicky.’
Nope, just horny. Wait, is that how I look when I’m –
‘Yeah, all good.’ I quickly put my phone in my bag, ignoring the vibration as Paul messages back.