know. I have to check on Skipper. Come on,” Maryann said.
“Who's Skipper?” Isabella asked.
“My brother.”
“Wait a minute. Your name is Maryann and your brother's name is Skipper?” Nora asked.
“My parents really loved Gilligan's Island,” she said with a shrug.
The four young women made their way back to the entrance.
“Hey, Maryann, Jamal's invited me to his house for dinner. His mom already said she'd take me home. Can I go, please?” Skipper asked. “Who are they?”
“These are my new friends, Isabella, Nora, and Leah. And I guess you can go, but make sure you call Mom when you get to Jamal's house.”
“Sure, no problem,” he said, and rejoined his friends.
“He sure couldn't get away fast enough,” Nora said wryly.
“He's my little brother. Of course he doesn't want to be seen hanging around his lame older sister,” Maryann said brightly. “Come on. We should go see the juggling show. If he asks you to pick stuff for him to juggle, make sure you pick stuff that's different sizes and weights. It makes it harder for him.” They again followed Maryann to the show.
Isabella laughed as the juggler lamented Nora's choices for him to juggle when suddenly she saw something small, fast, and ethereal zip across the stage. She couldn't make out what it was, but another small fast thing with wings zipped by and she could hear it saying something in a language she didn't understand, but it sounded frightened.
“Show's over,” Maryann said.
“Oh, right. Hey, this is going to sound weird, but where's that grove your friend was talking about?” Isabella asked.
Maryann pointed in the direction the small spirits had been flying away from. “Why?”
“I'm thinking of going to take a look. I've never seen a coven at work.”
“Well, you weren't invited.”
Another small spirit sped past them.
Isabella was very worried. While she did have spirit sight, she normally couldn't see un-manifested spirits without doing a spell first.
The wind direction abruptly changed and turned the early summer evening chilly.
“Yeah, that's not ominous,” Leah said.
“Then again, it wouldn't hurt to see what's going on,” Maryann replied.
Nora and Leah both pulled necklaces out from underneath their shirts, and then gave each other a suspicious look. Nora's was a plain silver cross; Leah's was a silver crucifix.
Maryann led them to the outskirts of the Ren Fair property. Isabella saw more and more of the small spirits running away from the area. The others were more focused on the very physical number of birds they could see, all of which seemed to be black.
“This is going to sound crazy,” Leah said hesitantly, “But something's not right here.”
Nora looked up at the trees. “That does sound crazy, but it doesn't mean it's wrong. I'm not like, a bird expert or anything, but why are there suddenly so many ravens?”
They others looked up as well.
“Some could be crows,” Leah said.
“Yeah, a bunch of carrion birds staring at us doesn't make me feel better,” Nora replied.
“They couldn't really have gotten the Morrigan,” Maryann muttered. “I really hope not anyway.”
They continued to the grove and found a group of ten young women, their age, standing in a circle around a small campfire. A woman who looked college-aged was reading a spell from what appeared to be a leather-bound journal. They were all wearing outfits similar to Brittany's; there was a lot of long skirts, crushed velvet, some lace, a lot of necklaces and bracelets, and a several corsets.
“Maryann,” Leah said in a low voice, “Do you know these girls?”
“Well, sure, they're Brittany's friends. That's the high priestess, Lady Sunfeather, I mean, Monica.”
“I was going to ask if she had any idea what she's saying, but if she calls herself that, I'm going to guess she doesn't,” Nora said. “Do you know what she's saying?”
“Well, I think she's reciting Badb's prophecy about the end of the world.”
“That sure as hell isn't something I'd be incorporating into a spell,” Isabella hissed.
“I agree.”
“Should we stop them or something?” Leah asked. “I don't want to be rude, but I've just got a very bad feeling.”
“I'll break it up, don't worry. Or else something bad might happen,” Maryann started to say, but was interrupted by a burst of energy.
Silence rolled through the grove like a shockwave absorbing all sounds. The fire turned a dark green color and started to smoke profusely. The girls coughed mutely until the silence passed and the smoke cleared.
All of the women in the coven had passed out and were lying on the ground. The fire had gone out and a creature was standing in the center. It seemed to be tall and humanoid but hooded and cloaked in shadows and smoke so that no feature could be made out. The hood was very hooked, almost like a bird's beak. Every branch of every tree was covered with mostly black birds that were all watching in rapt attention.
“What is that?” Nora hissed.
“I have no idea,” Maryann said. “If that's the Morrigan, that's no depiction I've ever seen. That looks maybe more like one of the primordial Greek deities, like Nyx or Erebos.”
“Maybe they dialed the wrong number,” Leah offered.
“That is definitely some kind of spirit and an ancient one,” Isabella said. Her spirit sight allowed her to see tendrils of ethereal smoke and shadows and pale fragments that reminded her of ghosts. “And I'm not going to assume it's friendly.”
“Then I'll talk to it,” Maryann said firmly, and walked into the open.
“Ok, so this day has taken a turn for the weird,” Leah said. “But I'm not letting her go alone.” She quickly followed Maryann.
Nora and Isabella scrambled right after.
The spirit in the middle of the circle turned to focus on the four women. The cloak shed black feathers as it moved.
“Hi,” Maryann said brightly. She could see no face in the endless depths of the hood.
“Who are you?” it snapped in a hollow, croaking voice that was impossible to identify as male or female.
“Um, a curious bystander.”
“And wise enough not to use your name, fire-haired worshipper of many pantheons,” it said.
“Who are you?” Maryann asked, wondering how it knew she was an eclectic pagan instead of a Kemetic worshipper as the ankh would indicate.
“I am one in a legion of forgotten gods,” it replied. “But still I exist in the trees and in the land and in the birds.”
“Are you dead?” Isabella asked.
The forgotten deity now focused on her.
Isabella gulped. She could see pinpoints of cold spirit light in the depths of the hood.
“I am neither dead nor alive, which you can see, airy firefly child of no gods. I am the walker between worlds, the one who comes and goes hither and yon. I have been called harbinger or messenger but always my name was greeted with fear and dread. The carrion eaters are my dutiful followers.” The birds quorked and croaked loudly until the deity cocked its head to one side, and then they were silent.
“Why are you here now?” Nora asked.
It turned to Nora. “Daughter of the most high God, why should you be here? Those who belong to your god typically give little thought to the rest of us. You are like the rivers or the oceans; always moving and changing with no anchor. Should not my very presence shake your beliefs to their core?”
“The Commandment says, 'Worship no gods before me,' not that there are no other gods,” she answered. “And Jesus is my anchor. And you didn't answer my question. Why are you here now?”
The dark figure almost seemed to laugh. “Long have I slept, forgotten and alone. The stars spin in the sky and I dream of the past. Then these foolish mortals came to my sacred place, kn
owing not what it was, on my sacred day, and performed a ritual to call on the one known to them as the Morrigan, whose home is a small island so very away from here across mountains and plains and an ocean. But they opened a door, nonetheless, that the Morrigan would not enter, but that I could enter. I so longed to be awake again that I entered their door.”
“Why did you knock them all out?” Leah asked. “St. Vincent help me,” she added in Spanish, looking at all the black birds.
“Another daughter of the most high God, but you are solid and sturdy and grounded by your nature. You do not change so easily. Again, why are you here as your God cares not for others?”
“I just want to make sure you aren't going to hurt anyone.”
Now its invisible gaze seemed to encompass the four of them. “Strangers all who only met today banded together to try to protect mortals who had no understanding of the power they were invoking. What do you think you could do against a god, even a forgotten one?”
“Whatever we have to,” Nora said defiantly, holding her cross tightly. “I have faith.”
“God will protect us. Even if we die, you have no power over our souls,” Leah added, clutching her crucifix. “Although I really, really hope it doesn't come to that.”
“I will ask Sekhmet to protect us as well,” Maryann said.
“Just because I don't have faith doesn't mean I don't know how to use magic,” Isabella said, pulling a piece of paper out of her pocket. The Japanese kanji written on it translated most closely to, 'Be gone evil spirit.' “I'm particularly good with spirit magic.”
“Are you going to hurt them?” Leah asked.
The strange, thin god seemed to laugh again. “I am not one to