Chapter 17 #2
“The gates were never meant to protect them,” Angus grumbled.
“It was to protect us. Protect the weird and magical and mysterious. You want metal wires and electrical signals filling the Shadowlands? You want the wild creatures of the other side cowering as scientists in this world try to pick them apart?”
Jack sighed. “What do you want?” He dragged the pot away from the fire and turned.
And when he turned, it was no longer the Green Man Carys saw. It was no longer the crackling prankster with bark in his hair and leaves springing from his shoulders or even the red-haired man in the pictures.
Now Jack of the Forest was the ancient and the elder.
His grey hair hung to his shoulders in tangled waves, and a white beard fell down his chest. His eyes were stone grey, and when Carys looked into them, she saw not one druid but all the druids from every story. Merlin and Gandalf and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
The old man looked at Carys. “What is your plan, Daughter of Two Worlds? Because you cannot defeat the Morrígan. How can one defeat a god at all? If even one still believes in her—in either world—a kernel of her divinity remains.”
“I don’t know,” Carys said. “That’s why I’m asking for your help.”
“Do you think you can persuade her to return? Because the only thing you can kill is their faith in her,” Jack said. “And faith is a very hard thing to kill.”
Kill faith in the Morrígan in order to rid the Brightlands of her? Carys had no idea what might kill faith in the Morrígan, but she had a feeling that it wasn’t something she was going to figure out that day.
“Will you help the girl or not?” Angus said. “There are other druids about. Others with a kinder face and more wisdom than you, Old Man.”
“Oh hush, now you’re just being insulting.
” Jack turned back to the pot and reached for a bright green pasta scoop that was shaped like a dinosaur head.
“I suppose we could go visit the beekeeper,” he said.
“Might be good to hear what Jibril thinks. Check on what messages the bees have from other places.”
When Jack turned with the first bowl of noodles in his hands, he had become a cheerful rogue with dancing eyes, curly red hair, ruddy cheeks, and just a few leaves stuck in his hair. “I serve you food, Carys Morgan. And I offer you respite in my home tonight.”
Jack held out his hand and pushed the air. Within seconds, an entirely new wing of his house appeared. Rich wood panels clad the walls, and a half dozen doors appeared in the distance.
“That’s kind of you, Jack.” Angus rose. “We can get a good rest tonight, then drive down to Wyre Forest in the morning.”
“That’s fine for you all,” Duncan said. “But if you’re staying here tonight, I need to go move the van so we still have a car to drive tomorrow.” He held out his hand. “Carys, you come with me. Anyone else prefer a hotel?”
“No need.” Jack snapped his fingers and handed Duncan a bowl of ramen. “I pulled your vehicle over into my world. They won’t find it there.”
Duncan looked at the man, then at his finger. “You didn’t even need to snap, did you?”
“I didn’t, no, but humans seem to like some kind of gesture with their magic.”
“And we’re stuck here until you let us go, aren’t we?” His jaw was tense. “Angus?” Duncan turned to the grey-headed man.
“To be fair, we didn’t petition for entry,” Angus said. “So broadly speaking, we are here until Jack decides otherwise.”
Carys tiptoed through dusty grey rubble, leaning on the twisted frame of an old car that was crushed in the middle of the street. The remains of a building that had tumbled over were just past the car, and smoke drifted in the air like evening fog.
The air-raid sirens were immediately recognizable even though she’d only heard them in movies. There were buzzing sounds in the air that Carys realized were planes flying overhead.
Shouts and honks sounded somewhere far away. When she looked up, there was a light fall of flakes that looked like snow, but when she held out her hand, grey flakes landed in her palm.
Ashes. She was walking through ashes.
Carys saw a person standing at the end of the road, a slim figure with flowing red curls that fell down her back.
She was wearing a long gown made of black, and as she knelt down and put her hands on the rubble, the Morrígan threw her head back and let out an agonized wail that drowned out the sirens until the world around them went silent.
No sirens. No shouting. No buzzing planes.
Just the soft fall of ashes all around them.
The goddess wailed on and on, until the wails became screams so loud that Carys put her hands over her ears and closed her eyes to try to muffle the piercing sound.
She could not stop it. It drilled into her mind like an ice pick.
“Stop!” Carys screamed. “Stop it, stop!”
The screaming stopped.
She opened her eyes, and the Morrígan was still kneeling in the rubble.
Carys walked closer, and as she approached, she could see the dark robes that the goddess wore were dripping with blood.
“Macha?” Carys stepped closer with care. “Where are we?”
A whisper came to her mind. You know. You have always known.
Carys shook her head. “I don’t know, because if movies are even a little bit accurate, we’re in Blitz-era London, and I’ve never traveled to the past before.”
Holy shit, had the Morrígan pulled her into the past? Was she stuck in a time loop? How did she get out of this one?
There was a low, grating laugh, then the Morrígan—still kneeling—turned her moon-pale face to Carys. “You’re dreaming, you fool.”
But it wasn’t the Morrígan’s voice, it was her own.
“Not yours, mine.”
Carys turned to her left, and she was looking at an image of herself, only this version had braids hanging to her waist and an ethereal blue glow to her skin.
“Oh my god, it’s you.”
“Which god are you talking about?” Seren asked.
“I’m pale.” Carys stared at her near mirror image. “But I’m not that pale.”
“You’re also not dead,” Seren said. “That helps.”
What was happening? How was Seren here? Where was here?
Carys asked, “How are you here?”
“How are either of us here? Better yet, where are we?” Seren walked over and crouched next to the Morrígan. “What are you playing at, you saucy bitch? I always liked you, but this is a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”
When the Morrígan blinked, tears of blood dripped down her cheeks. “If they had not trapped me, I would have prevented all this.”
“Oh no, you wouldn’t have,” Seren said. “You would have probably made this entire war ten times worse.”
“They attacked my people!” The goddess screamed long and piercing wails again.
“Is that the fairy tale you tell yourself?” Seren asked. “That you would have protected Briton if Epona had let you roam free?”
The Morrígan stood and spun around. “I would have protected my land!”
Since the wailing and weeping had died down, Carys stepped closer. “Her aspect is sovereignty too. Not just war, but war with a purpose. War with… an end.”
Seren stood and turned to Carys. “Do tell, Professor.” She scoffed. “We’re not living in your books.”
“Or are we?” Carys asked. “According to you, this is a dream. My dream.”
“You dream about books?”
“Regularly, but that’s not what’s happening here.” Carys walked away from them both and looked around her.
On closer inspection, the structure of the dream was sloppy. Far more like a film set than a real place. “Did she conjure this? Why? I’ve never dreamed about the war.” Though her father’s parents would have lived through the war, she’d never met any of them.
“Maybe this is better.” The Morrígan brushed her hand over the burning scene of London, and it wasn’t London anymore—it was a burning forest fire with a small cabin in the distance, smoke coming from embers on the roof.
“Now this is a nightmare.” Carys turned back to the Morrígan. “What are you doing, Macha? Why did you pull Seren into my dream? Is she actually here or am I imagining it?”
The Morrígan was the Crow Mother again, and her smile was a mystery.
“I always knew you were out there.” Seren walked around Carys, staring at the raging forest fire the Morrígan had conjured. “Is this your home? It wasn’t a small thing to find you.”
Carys turned to her Shadowkin. “You tried?”
“You and our mother were the ones to move across an ocean.” The corner of Seren’s mouth ticked up, and the expression was so like Dafydd that Carys took a step back.
“It’s really you. This isn’t just an illusion.”
Seren turned in a circle, looking around at the fiery landscape. “She’s managed to conjure your nightmare, which is no small thing in the Brightlands.”
“I’m not in the Brightlands. Exactly.”
“Where are you then?” Seren’s eyes narrowed as she squared her shoulders with Carys. “Is Lachlan with you? What do you think you’re doing? You’re not a hero. You’re not a warrior.”
“I know I’m not,” Carys stammered. “But Cadell and I—”
“Oh, that’s right. It wasn’t enough to steal my husband, you had to steal my dragon too?”
“What?” Carys’s mouth dropped open. “I didn’t steal anything. Lachlan came looking for me.”
Seren started to circle her. “So why did you follow him?”
“What was I supposed to do?” Was she really fighting with a dead woman over her ex-boyfriend? “Pretend like my boyfriend getting stolen by the fae was normal?”
“In my world it would be.”
“I wasn’t in your world—I was in mine!”
“Fight.”
They both turned and saw Macha standing, blood dripping from her eyes, her hands clenched at her sides. A wicked smile curved her lips.
“Fight,” they said again, because Macha was two now, and Badb stepped from her sister’s shadow.
Maiden and mother standing against Shadow and Bright.
“Fight,” the Morrígan said, her voice echoing. “Fight. Fight.”
“No.” Carys reached for Seren’s hand, and her Shadowkin wrapped her fingers around hers tightly. “No, but nice try.”
“You brought us here so we’d fight, didn’t you?” Seren clutched Carys’s hand firmly. “Wrong again, saucy bitch. We’re sisters. Sisters may fight, but they stick together. You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”
Macha and Badb opened their mouths in unison, and the piercing scream was bloodcurdling as a flight of crows flew from their yawning mouths, cawing and flying straight into Carys’s eyes.
“Carys!” It was Lachlan’s voice.
“Carys!” It was Duncan’s voice.
Seren shouted, but then the crows surrounded them and she was gone.