Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Morrigan rests Meg’s good hand on Nanny Bet’s cheek. ‘It’s been so long since I’ve truly touched the flesh of another, too long since I’ve held another in my arms.’ She strokes her skin softly. ‘Too long since I’ve squeezed the life from a mewling mortal.’
‘You said you wouldn’t hurt her.’ I strain forward uselessly.
The Morrigan nods. ‘I know what I said.’ She plays with a lock of Nanny Bet’s hair. ‘Such a pity. I was so proud of you, Elizabeth. Your poems were as beautiful as the ancient epics. You could have done so much.’ Her blood is staining Nanny Bet’s hair.
‘But you have thrown my graces back in my face. And so I will take them back from you. And with it all that you are. You dare to tamper with the memories of others. You will have none.’
‘No!’ I shout.
Nanny Bet raises her chin in defiance to the goddess behind her. ‘Michael, I’m so sorry. I love—’ Her words are lost in a scream as the Morrigan digs her talons into the side of her head.
I struggle forward only to be pulled back by the shadows. Nanny Bet’s face is frozen in terror.
‘Please.’
Nanny Bet slumps forward. I let out a cry and am released from the shadows binding me. I stagger towards her, kneel down and slowly lift her chin. Her eyes have clouded black like the Morrigan’s and a slither of saliva drops from her lips.
‘Nanny Bet?’
She blinks and the blackness recedes until her dark green eyes are back again. ‘What happened?’
Relief floods over me and I hug her. ‘Oh God, oh God. I thought… I love you. I love you.’
She stiffens in my arms, and when I pull back, she’s frowning.
‘Who are you?’
I can’t get the air out of my lungs as the panic starts to build. ‘It’s me, Michael.’
She jolts back. ‘I don’t know you. Where am I? What… what am I doing here?’
Wind roars round my head. ‘Nanny Bet, please. It’s me. I’m your grandson. Please…’
‘What’re you talking about.’ Her hands tremble on her chest. ‘Don’t hurt me.’
Hurt her?
‘I’d never... You have to remember me.’ I step towards her, but she flings out her arms and pushes me back.
‘Get away,’ she whimpers.
I step forward again and she cries out and flaps wildly at my chest. ‘Who are you? Get out of here. I’ll get my Frank on you. I’ll call the police.’
I raise my hands to protect myself. ‘Sorry, I’m sorry.’
Nanny Bet gets to her feet.
I’m shaking my head. ‘No, no. It’s OK. I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll go…I’ll go.’
She turns and I watch as she limps towards the house, blood matted in her hair.
My throat narrows as the back door closes after her. I can only hear the sound of my own ragged breaths. The moisture from the grass soaks through my jeans and chills my knees.
‘We need to talk.’ The Morrigan sits on a garden chair and waves her good hand towards the empty one beside her.
I stand up, my muscles screaming in protest. The lights in the kitchen are on and Nanny Bet is watching through the window. Even from here, I can see the blood trickling down her face.
‘Sit, Micheál.’
‘I’m fine standing.’ My voice is steadier than it has any right to be.
She shrugs. ‘As you wish.’
I fold my arms. ‘How could you do that to her?’
‘We are not to be crossed.’
My teeth chatter, but I clamp them shut.
‘We’ll not harm her any more. That debt is paid.’ She nods. ‘I want to tell you everything. You deserve that.’
In among the numbing fear, a heat is building in my stomach. ‘No.’
She blinks. ‘Excuse me.’
The fire spreads through me. ‘I don’t want to hear it. I have nothing left to say to you. You’ve taken my father from me. You’ve taken my nan. We are done.’
I turn.
‘Don’t walk away from me. You are a death poet.’
The flames erupt and I whirl on her. ‘I am nothing to you. Do what you want – I won’t be your slave.’
Her taloned fingers twitch, the shadowy dress ripples.
I turn to go again and Meg speaks. ‘Please, Micheál. I need you.’
I turn back. ‘What do you mean?’
Her voice is little more than a thread. ‘I didn’t want things to happen this way, you know. Your nan ignored them and their power for so long. We…they tried everything to make her accept who she was and what she was born to do.’
‘What was my nan meant to do?’
‘She was meant to tell Brigid’s story. She was meant to train her son. He was meant to train you.’
My neck heats up. ‘You can’t be serious. She lost everything.’
The Morrigan stands tall. ‘She still had a son. Yes, she lost a loved one, but death is a part of life, Micheál.’
‘That’s easy for you to say. It’s what you are.’
‘It is true. Every death is the end of someone’s story. It hurts. I know it hurts. I’ve had husbands, lovers, children, friends, all gone. It broke my heart. And I’ve watched your ancestors die. You remember the baby in the graveyard?’
I nod as the image of that little white hand floods back.
‘A file báis like you. She didn’t even live long enough to fulfil her purpose. I mourned her when nobody else would, like she was my own. Which she was, just as you are. I am a mother. I know what pain is. I live death, all of it. Every loss.’
A crow calls out from the tree and she turns towards it like she’s greeting a friend.
‘Are you expecting me to feel sorry for you? Because I don’t.’ I force myself to meet her eyes. ‘You’re a murderer.’
She stares at me, unblinking. ‘You know nothing of what I am.’
‘And you know nothing of me.’
She sighs. ‘Of course I know you. You’re my poet. I made you what you are through your bloodline.’ She smiles lightly. ‘And the part of me that is still your naive friend cares for you. For now.’
A chill runs through me. ‘What do you mean, for now?’
The Morrigan stretches her unbroken fingers. ‘Meg has served her purpose.’
‘Meg, what’s going to happen to you?’
For a moment I see Meg, my Meg, grimacing in pain, her broken hand trembling. ‘I’ll be taken by death, Micheál.’
‘Is that what you want?’
‘It’s my duty.’ she says shakily.
‘Did you know?’
‘What?’
‘When you did the stupid ritual, did you know that you’d have to sacrifice yourself in order for her to come back? Because that’s what it means, right? Meg, you’ll die.’
‘I…’ Meg lets out a whimper as her face convulses. Her eyes turn black. The Morrigan’s voice returns. ‘Enough. What say you?’
I gather myself and face her full on. ‘Why us? Why do you need us to tell stories of death?’
‘So that people can know who they are, what they are and where they are from. For thousands of years I have walked this land. Seeing people fight, start wars and seek to destroy all that is around them. I have seen people invade and overthrow, murder men, women and children, and do you know what they wanted to kill more than anything else?’ I shake my head.
‘The past, Micheál. History. Us. People barely know what we are any more.’
Nanny Bet’s warning comes back to me. ‘So this is all about your vanity?’
She shoots me a look and I flinch as a whip of ice burns my chest. Then she relaxes her features, reining her powers in.
‘Do you know how you destroy a people? Yes, you kill them, of course, rip out their throats, tear down their homes and starve them, but you can’t destroy them until you erase their stories.
So much has been lost and forgotten over the years, but Ireland, and everyone who calls it home, survives because the tales are passed on.
That’s what you do, Micheál. That’s what your family has always done.
There is always one in each generation, and you keep the old ways alive by telling the truth in ways people will understand.
Stories, art.’ She smiles. ‘You help people know who they are.’
‘But what about us? What about the traumas people in my family have been dealing with?’
She snorts. ‘And how exactly have they dealt with them? By running away?’
I think of Dad’s dark eyes, hands clutching a whiskey as he sits in silence, listening to his demons. I think of Nanny Bet living in constant pain, the price of ignoring her power.
‘They dealt with them like people, because that’s what they are. They’re living with traumas that you’ll never understand.’
She gestures towards the city. ‘Your family are not the only ones who have experienced loss. There is pain out there, whitehot pain. It sits in people’s stomachs and they either forge it into a weapon to attack others or they swallow a poison of their own making that eats them up inside.’
The families on the news flood back into my mind. ‘You know what’s happening out there? The violence, the fighting. You’re causing it.’
She flexes her fingers. ‘It’s not my doing. People are angry, misguided, fearful. They call on me to feed their flames. To fight. That’s my purpose.’ He fingers form a fist.
‘They’re racists attacking innocent people.’
She nods. ‘They are.’
‘And you don’t care about people not from here?’
She growls. ‘My own people arrived on this island on boats. No land belongs to any mortals, no matter how much they kill for it. War is inevitable. It’s in you, all of you. That’s why I exist.’
‘You’re a monster. You murdered my family.’
‘Your family are not the only people who have experienced loss and they aren’t the only people that bury it.
’ She points at me. ‘The difference is that you have the power to see the truth. You care so much about the plight of those people out there and yet you ignore the fact that you can do something about it. Tell their stories, file báis.’
The night is cold.
‘Why can’t you do it yourself?’
‘Excuse me?’
An idea is forming. ‘You’re in a human body now. Write your own stories, take your photos, go to the art shop and paint a picture. Meg was good at that, you know.’
The Morrigan’s nostrils flare and a thrum of power radiates from her.
‘You need us, don’t you?’ I say.
Her smile is thin. ‘Yes, I said that. We need our poets.’
‘Because nobody knows who you are.’
She flinches.
Fuck it. What have I got to lose?
I step towards her. ‘The world has pretty much forgotten you and you have no place in it. You don’t belong here any more.’ I point at her. ‘You are nothing without us. Am I right?’
She raises her chin. A crow lands on each shoulder and the Morrigan stands before me. The tripartite goddess of death and war.
And they need me.
The crow on her right shoulder ruffles its feathers and the Morrigan nods. ‘Will you take your place as our poet?’
‘No.’
Their eyes flicker. ‘You know what we can do to you, Micheál. To your family. We can hurt Cormac, your mother, little Fiona, all of them.’
Her words slice deep, but I keep my eyes focused on her. ‘And that would just make me hate you more than I already do. I will never serve you. I will never do your bidding. I will leave now, the last of my line. Unless…’
She raises an eyebrow. ‘Unless?’
‘You spare my family, including my dad. And give me back my nan and Meg.’
The crows caw. ‘We do not bargain with mortals.’
‘Fine, have a nice life.’ I walk away, her eyes on me, my back exposed.
‘Wait.’
I turn slowly. ‘Yes.’
The Morrigan looks at the crow on her left and whispers something, before rasping at me, ‘Will you do your duty? Will you tell the story? Will you be a file báis?’
A clink of crockery from the kitchen draws my gaze and I see Nanny Bet clutching a mug.
My arms are heavy. ‘You promise you’ll return them?’
The crow on the right croaks and the goddess nods. ‘If they wish to be returned. Meg, on the other hand, has made her decision.’
‘No, that’s not what I… Meg, please, you can stop this. Come back to me.’
Doubt flickers across Meg’s face. ‘Michael, I…’ The cold stare of the Morrigan returns. ‘You are testing my patience, child. If you want your family back, you will tell the untold story.’
‘Which one?’
She walks to the edge of the garden and points out over the city as a tower of light reaches into the night sky. Acre Street.