I stopped at the center fire on my way to Sid’s. No doubt she hadn’t eaten. Small pots sat warming on stones all around the cauldron. Aridmis had made mutton. I could still smell its sweet scent. I bent beside the fire.
The bank of coals under the cauldron flickered like a beating heart, thumping red, orange, and black. It had grown very cold outside. I could smell the threat of snow in the air. I was about to lift one of the pot lids when I saw a shadow out of the corner of my eye. In the hours waning from Samhain, it did not pay to ignore shades. The dead, especially those who did not wish to be dead, still roamed the land. And they were not all friendly.
I stood to find a woman standing a few feet back from the fire. She was half-concealed by shadows, but I could still make out her features. Her hair was scarlet red, the color of velvet and blood. Her locks were twisted over her shoulder, decorated with black gems and small bones. She held a tall staff topped with a human skull, and on her left shoulder sat a raven.
“My Lady,” I whispered, bowing my head. My knees went soft. A sharp pain spread across my chest as wild panic beat through my veins. Why had the Goddess of Death come?
“Do you know who I am?” she asked, and I realized then that she sounded angry.
“You…you are the Morrigu,” I stammered, looking up at her.
She smiled, her lips curling to reveal sharp, pointed teeth. “I am death.”
“Pray, what service can I offer you, Lady?” I whispered.
She laughed a full-blooded laugh. “Prey,” she said then paused. “I have marked you as mine since your birth. It was me who answered Boite’s call. The time has come for you to do my will.”
My whole body shook. My heart beat so hard I could hear it slamming in my chest, my eardrums throbbing. “I am yours to command.”
“It is time to join your sisters of the cauldron.”
“The cauldron…the Wyrds?”
The Morrigu clenched her jaw. I could feel anger emanating from her. Her eyes narrowed. She took a step toward me. “Did you think your destiny was your own to choose? Saucy and over-bold, how dare you traffic and trade with Banquo in riddles and the affairs of men, giving what was not yours to give? You don’t belong to Malcolm or Madelaine or Banquo or even yourself. I am your mistress. Boite gave you to me. I am the source of all that power locked inside you. You…are mine. And you will go where I command. You will learn what I deem fitting when I decide.”
“I—” I began, but I wasn’t sure to what to say. My knees were shaking.
The Morrigu nodded to her raven. It flew to Epona’s window and pecked on the glass.
“I’ve honored you with this choice. You are the first to join my coven in nearly five hundred years,” the goddess told me.
Shocked, I looked from the Goddess to Epona’s house. Epona’s door opened slowly. She stepped into the doorway, her hair all a mess. She pulled a blanket tight around her and squinted.
“Cerridwen?” she called.
With the most subtle twist of her wrist, the Death Goddess recalled her raven. It was then that Epona spotted her. I heard her gasp as she took two steps toward us then she bowed deeply.
“She is for the ether,” the Morrigu told Epona.
Thora emerged from the darkness and padded across the coven square to me. She stood beside me whimpering softly.
Epona said nothing. I could see she was shaking.
“Do you understand, horsewoman?” the Morrigu asked Epona.
“Yes, My Lady,” Epona answered hesitantly.
The Morrigu laughed. “You’ll get what’s yours. I’ve already agreed to that bit, but for now, it’s time to play,” she said then turned to me. “Before this one complicates matters further with her…will.” With a flourish of her staff, the space around Thora and me began to roll with twisting black smoke. It snaked around us like it was alive.
“Cerridwen!” I heard Sid scream.
I turned to see Sid rushing from her house toward us, a look of shock and fear painted on her face.
The Morrigu stepped forward, grabbed me by my neck, and looked at me face to face. Her eyes were dark as a starless night, her skin pale, lips red. “Why Gruoch, you look confused,” she said with a laugh then everything went black.
Chapter 23
The Morrigu let go. I twirled like I was trapped in the middle of a windstorm. Around me was a whirlwind of black smoke. I felt dizzy as I twisted in the wind. My head throbbed like it was being squeezed, and my ears popped. Then I hit the ground hard. I was lying on the ground under a flower arbor. Enormous, long purple blossoms growing on vines twisted around the ancient stone column. Their smell was sweet, like mint, milkweed, and lilacs. I had only seen them once before. Madelaine had called the vine wisteria. The world around me was lit in hues of black, purple, and silver. I closed my eyes and inhaled the wisteria’s perfume. My ears were ringing; my head felt heavy. I was disoriented and very angry. Slowly, I sat up and looked around.
The arbor opened to a courtyard surrounded by crumbling stone columns. The flagstones glimmered silver. Wisteria grew all over everything. The sky was black; only scant beams of moonlight managed to slip though. Outside the circle of the cracked and tumbling columns, I could make out the shapes of half-tumbled buildings. Stones littered the ground. I was in a ruin. And at the center of the courtyard, in an ancient and decayed temple, was a cauldron. Beside that cauldron stood the Wyrd Sisters. The Morrigu was gone.
I rose and walked toward the women. My blood was thundering through my veins. My nostrils flared in fury. “Where am I? How do I get back?” I demanded.
The older woman, who stood bent and leaning against a staff, half-grunted, half-laughed. “You’re in the otherworld, girl. Where do you think?”
“Come, Cerridwen,” the younger woman beckoned. “Drink and be at ease,” she added, dipping a silver ladle into the cauldron and lifting it, offering it to me.
“I need to go back. Now. Tell me how to go back.”
“Why?” the old woman answered me in a voice that was too loud and too abrupt. Her voice echoed throughout the space. I realized then that wherever I was, it was very…empty.
I opened my mouth to answer, but she interrupted me.
“You cannot defy the Dark Lady, unless you wish for death. Or maybe she would just punish you by condemning your druid. You are here because the Morrigu wants you here. Would you disobey the Goddess of Death?”
I stared hard at the old woman, who stared equally hard back at me. Then, after a moment, she chuckled. “Stubborn girl. Still stubborn as ever. Drink, Cerridwen. Drink and learn. I am not your enemy. I’m just a bubble of the earth,” she said with a laugh then turned and sat down on a bench nearby. I stared at her. She was an ancient thing, her long gray hair nearly sweeping the ground. Her face was deeply wrinkled, and her fingers gripping the staff were gnarled and boney. Exasperated, she sighed and looked expectantly at me. When I didn’t move, she flourished her hand in irritation toward the younger woman who still held the ladle, waiting expectantly for me.
“Come, sister,” the red-haired woman said. “We will not harm you. Drink so you may know,” she said.