Sidhe's Call Read online

Chapter Four

  Onora shuffled across the stone floor, rusted kettle delicately slung on her withered wrist like a behemoth trinket. The crusty bread loaf she held in her opposite hand flumped onto the knotty table, jiggling an assortment of cutlery, mismatched saucers, and a jumbled basket of glass vials, each containing a variety of liquids, powders, or crushed leaves.

  She glanced up at her two guests, smiling meekly with arrow-straight teeth. She poured mugs of musty smelling brew for Bridget and Branna who sat patiently awaiting Onora to begin their conversation. A faint whisper of an ancient tune escaped from Onora’s weathered lips, dancing in the cave’s dank air.

  While the old seer’s dwelling was carved into the side of a cliff, you could only detect that fact from the scent of prehistoric raindrops and sounds of animal chatter echoing from nearby chambers. Her home was charming and small, despite her high-standing among the Ban Sidhe. It was only a single room, but its size did not matter because she lived fairly secluded and alone.

  From the center of the room to the ceiling’s edges draped a billowy purple sheet of velvety cloth, and from there the draperies cascaded dramatically down the walls of the circular room, brushing the floor with black tassels. It was much like being cased inside a coffin, but less confining.

  I stood unnoticed behind the curtains, hiding close to the cave’s entrance should I need to escape. After tracking Aidan throughout the night, I had to visit Onora. I had to talk to her about everything that happened. But when I saw my sisters arrive at the cave, I remained hidden, no one aware of my presence.

  No electric lights or fires were necessary inside the crone’s home – captured moonlight hung in orbs inches below the ceiling, twinkling brighter whenever Onora swished her hand this way and dimming when she flicked her wrist that way. The table at which my sisters sat in silence was tucked away at the end of the room closest to my concealed exit.

  Bridget calmly sat in her uncomfortable chair. Branna’s impatient index finger swirled in mid-air under the table, twirling a dust bunny against the floor again and again; her black eyes burned more intensely with each flick of her wrist.

  Bridget ignored Branna’s fidgety spell-casting. But both of us know this is what our oldest sister does when she’s really annoyed.

  Bridget’s gaze shifted to a round, puffed pillow at the opposite side of the room.

  Onora quickly noticed her gazing. “Mmm hm. Yep, Bridget. That’s my bed. I sleep there.” A creaking laugh escaped before she could slap her veiny hands over her mouth. “Sorry, dear,” she rattled, her knobby-knuckled hands mindlessly ripping the bread into sizeable chunks and leaving them atop the table, “but I’m always amused the first time young folk see the way I live. Maybe I should get one of those beds that dangles from the ceilin’!” She slapped her crooked leg, a poof of dust bouncing off her gathered skirt. “Woohoo! That would drive ‘em all mad, now wouldn’t it?”

  She shuffled back to a glowing yellow ball floating above the floor in the center of the room, several pots hanging over the warmth, bubbling at varying degrees. Snatching a tiny copper pot from midair, Onora spun back to my sisters, clinking across the floor as she crept back.

  “Hangin’ beds, ha! That’d be a sight!” She slapped the pot on the table, melted goat butter sloshing over the rim. Onora always had a pot of butter ready whenever I visited—it was her favorite snack.

  “Onora—” Bridget interrupted.

  “Oh!” the hag caught herself in a common distracted moment. “I suppose you want to talk about young Morgan, eh?” She hobbled to the open stool, her immense rump plopping between Branna and Bridget.

  “Well--” Bridget grasped for delicacy, as usual. She’s always careful not to step on anyone’s toes.

  Branna sighed heavily. “What she means to say is, why else do you think we came all of the way out to the Charcoal Crags?”

  “I thought you may have wanted to view the scenery. Maybe see where crazy old Onora lives? Huh?” More cackling as she rearranged her broomstick skirt on her lap, slapping her leg in amusement.

  Branna glared at the ancient woman. She was not remotely amused.

  “A little testy, now, aren’t we, Branna?” Onora winked at Bridget.

  Branna shifted uncomfortably. She held her lips tight.

  “She’s just a little… tired. From the ceremony. That’s all,” Bridget covered.

  “Hm. Very well. Whatever you say. But you both better drink your tea before I get offended.” She smugly sipped her own steaming cup, smiling over the brim. “So. What is it you want to know?”

  Silence passed as Bridget glanced back and forth between Onora and Branna. I too waited in anticipation, hoping I was still safely hidden.

  “You were there! You saw it, didn’t you?” Bridget sputtered. “We all saw it!” Her voice rose in excitement.

  The ancient hag snatched a chunk of bread, dipped it in the melted butter and took an enormous bite, chewing with mouth half-opened as she smiled. After a few gnaws, she took a sip of tea to wash it down. It was like she dragged out her teatime just to get under Branna’s skin.

  I loved every second of it, but had to keep silent.

  “Well,” she took one final swallow of the moistened bread, “no one’s to say what you saw or what I saw. Perception is the key, am I right?”

  Branna remained silent, lips draw tight and glaring at Onora. Unlike me and Bridget, Branna trained with the seer Muirna and not Onora. She didn’t know her like we did, and her impatience with my mentor was obvious.

  “I guess,” Bridget replied for them both. “But, if I may ask, what is it you saw?”

  “Ocular showed me Carrion Crow, same as you. But did you see with Sidhe?” Her wildly bushy eyebrows arched. “Did you let yourself go? Eh? Did your mind tell you there was more behind the blue-black feathers? Eh? Did it?” She looked at my sisters, accusation seeping between her passionate words.

  But my sisters just sat there, as though they didn’t know what to say. Maybe they didn’t see anything. Maybe all they saw was nothing but my successful transformation and flight; the first step on the journey to being full Ban Sidhe like them.

  “Do you doubt it was there?” Onora asked.

  Bridget was drawn in by Onora’s words. “What, exactly, do you mean by it?”

  Branna’s calloused voice cut through the dank air. “What she means by it is, do you give in to all of this prophecy stuff that has been rattled on and on about for generations? I, for one, am not going to stick around to find out what this bag of bones has to say about Morgan. What can she, who has only known our sister for three months, know better than her own blood-–her family?”

  “Aren’t we all family?” Onora whispered between sips of tea.

  Branna slammed her mug down, hot liquid splashing over the rim, and she stood in a fury. She breathed through huffing and puffing nostrils, the quick inhales and exhales failing to calm her irritation. “I have letters to write and questions to answer. Mysterious happenings are afoot, and I do not have time for guessing games. I’m done here. Bridget, if you remember anything Dad taught us, you’ll come to the same realization.” With that, Branna stormed to the entrance, right where I was standing.

  I took off in crow-form before she could find out that I was eavesdropping.

  Concealed within shadows of a discreetly carved cave next to the ancient seer’s hovel, I clung to jagged stones. My breath was labored as I tried to hold back gasps, desperately trying to keep exhaustion and astonishment at bay as I watched Bridget’s avian form soar by the cave’s mouth.

  I could not believe everything I heard just minutes before while hiding behind the curtains—everything I heard before Branna stormed out and gave me a warning to find a better hiding spot.

  Luckily.

  I knew Branna would have no clue that I was listening or hiding—her anger was so piqued that no presence could break through her emotional walls.

  I don’t think Onora would d
o anything if she knew I was hiding out—it was the way Onora always handled things, letting me explore and take risks.

  But what did I learn from sneaking out and visiting the Charcoal Crags? I risked three weeks of Seclusion by violating curfew and another two weeks of grounding if the clan discovered that I was visiting Onora’s after the Initiation Ceremony was complete.

  Yet I couldn’t help being there on that night—to hear what they had to say.

  Everyone in Finias was talking about sightings of hellhounds in the mountains of Northern Idaho. Common whispers filled the taverns. “The prophecy. Do you think it is beginning?” Eyes shifting as I walked down the street. “Their family tends to be crow.”

  But beyond wanting to know about the activities taking place in the north, I wanted answers about my destiny.

  I already knew most of what Branna thought about me; Branna was never very talented at hiding her opinions and feelings. In fact, Branna usually went out of her way to find opportunities to express herself, wanted or not. It had been years since Branna’s callous comments brought me to tears; I was simply used to it at the age of sixteen. It was no surprise to me what Branna said about both Onora and me—Branna’s stance that Onora was a mumbling old has-been and that I was her dim-witted and fragile sister.

  It was more of what Bridget and Onora had to say that intrigued me. With all of the rumors spread about the prophecy, I had to have answers. Everyone I was remotely close to and who had rights to privileged information blocked every question I asked.

  Burke barely even felt comfortable talking to me. Bridget stayed silent. Branna would just get annoyed.

  My breathing began to return to normal, my body relaxing now that I knew Bridget was already on her way back home.

  “What a day.” I sighed, sinking down to the floor, its cool dampness soothing my aching limbs. Shifting was not as easy and pain-free as I thought it would be, but Onora taught me that the residuals would wear off after a few hours and would lessen in intensity the more often I changed.

  Onora. One of the few people who treated me normal. Most of the others either whispered in my presence, eyes darting at me and then away as though I would not be able to tell what they were talking about, or they simply acted as though I did not exist. I wished they would just talk to my face, even if their words were harsh. It’s the one thing I could appreciate about Branna—at least she was blunt and honest.

  The last three months in the Crags was the best time I could remember since Father left two years ago. Onora seemed to wipe away the ugliness of the world with the wave of her hand. I could even manage to avoid thinking about my parents for those few hours a day.

  Every time I walked through the dusty tapestries, I would be reborn. The girl I was one day was not the person I had to be the next. Onora always believed that each day was a new beginning for reinventing the self.

  Out of everyone I knew, Onora actually practiced all of the mumbo-jumbo she preached, no matter how ridiculous it sounded.

  Yet I still wondered.

  What did Onora say to Bridget and Branna? What were her exact words about the ceremony? What was it that Onora saw with Sidhe Sight?

  With how upset Branna had become, I knew that there must have been some kind of promise in what Onora saw.

  There must be.

  Or maybe Onora was just messing with Branna’s head.

  Yet, Bridget, my always protective sister, took off from the Crags with such haste that whatever Onora told Bridget had to be important.

  Or maybe Bridget was so disappointed in me that she left in a hurry.

  I didn’t know what to think anymore. I was relieved that the whole Incantation was over and done so that I could continue with my life, regardless of some prophecy divined by Onora’s grandmother two hundred years earlier.

  Maybe once I returned to Finias everyone would already know that there was nothing to the prophecy. Nothing to Morgan. Nothing to whisper about as I walked by, willing myself to be invisible under my wall of dark hair. Nothing but thin air.

  “Morgan,” the call was unmistakable, the raspy voice as familiar to me now as the warmth of Mother’s embraces. Yet, I ignored it. Why couldn’t I be left alone with my thoughts?

  “Morgan.” The voice grew more insistent, echoing off the walls. “We need to have a moment.”

  Onora spoke from the recesses of the narrow passageway which connected to another passage in the back of Onora’s home—an opening too small for anyone to slip through in Sidhe form. If I looked hard enough, I would see peregrine eyes blinking back at me in the dark, and Onora’s trademark speckled feathers gleaming like a beacon.

  Without words, I shifted form in the cave’s echoes. My crow-self bounced from rock to rock, the cave’s walls too slim for flight, and squeezed through the narrow stone channel, emerging in the welcoming light of Onora’s home.