H, after making up some strange excuse, was able to get me away from everyone so we could have a moment of privacy.
She was shaking her head emphatically. “You can’t do it. You can’t make a deal with my mom and come out the other side smelling like a rose. Nobody can.”
“Well, do you have any other suggestions?”
She was looking worriedlyat me. “No, but...”
“And this is the only way I’m going to get back to the Library?”
“Yes, but...”
“Listen, ever since I got sucked into this place, I’ve had to recite bad poetry, fight and kill my plastic step dad, who I can safely say, I didn’t know. I don’t see how agreeing to pay your mom’s price is going to be any weirder.”
“Do you know how my dad and The Morrigan hooked up?”
“No...” I was going to say I wasn’t really that interested, but when if there is one thing I’ve been learning about H is that when she’s forceful you better listen. Right now she was looking a little bit predatory...something like her mom.
“It was before a big battle. Dad was out of his water. Sure, give him something to hit and he’ll wade in swinging that club of his. He enjoys that. But this was different. The Fir Bolg were expecting that and they were ready. They would have annihilated the entire Tuatha de Danann. You listening?”
She poked me in the chest. “Yes, I’m listening.”
“Good, maybe you’ll get it then. He went to The Morrigan. He said he needed a plan, a strategy. Mom, is really, really good at stuff like that. She said she would do it...for a price.”
“That’s how they got together?” Even though I was slow about ointerpersonal stuff like that I was beginning to put things together. “Is that how you...”
“Yes,” she responded tersely, “but I’m not in the mood for sharing.”
I put my hands up in defence. “That’s fine. I’m all for not sharing.”
“Stop being such a jade fool. This is serious.”
The hurt look on her face subdued me. “Sorry, I just get kind of stupid when I’m stressed.”
“Good, you should be stressed. Not only did they sleep together, but she made Dagda give her his trowthe that he would let her, at some time in the future, select the High King of the Tuatha de Danann.”
“He could always just go back on his word.”
“You really don’t know anything do you?”
“That’s harsh, keep going like this and you’re going to hurt my feelings.”
She looked a bit stunned, as though hurting my feelings just hadn’t entered into her mind. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “But when you give a trowthe in Faerie, you keep your trowthe, or you die.”
“What’s a trowthe?”
“It’s Old English for truth or promise. It has to be given verbally, but once it’s done, an inseparable bond is formed, until the trowthe is fulfilled.”
“So, Dagda is stuck with The Morrigan until he lets her pick the High King? So, who is the High King?”
“Nobody. That’s why things have gone a bit insane in Faerie. The High King and Queen are sort of the glue that holds the Tuatha de Danann’s sanity together. It’s a collective.”
My mind was spinning. No wonder H was wary of her mother. She was an immensely powerful woman. “So, if it’s so important to have a High King, why hasn’t she selected one?”
“You could always ask me.” It was the voice of The Morrigan.
The air around us seemed to freeze. I noticed that H had stopped breathing and her eyes had become as large as dinner plates. Mom used to say in for a penny, in for a pound, which I never understood because she wasn’t talking dollars. I turned to confront The Morrigan.
“Then why don’t you?” I tried to keep my voice strong and determined, but was irritated when a quaver entered into it.
All three gave me a knowing smile, which was fine. What shook me was the flat calculating depth in her black eyes. “Good, you are strong. Strong enough to stand up to Cliodhna. Not too many people could have done that. She has a very – compelling song.”
“You mean that screech? I wouldn’t call that singing.”
“Better than Bono,” said The Morrigan. “To answer your question, about why I haven’t selected a High King, it is important to understand our history.”
“You defeated the Fir Bolg and took their lands.”
“True, and the Milesians took ours through treachery.”
“The Milesians?” I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about.
“To put it plainly,” said H, “the world you’ve been living in.”
I scratched my head. “There’s something I don’t understand here. The Tuatha De Danann are magical folk, right?”
“Correct,” said The Morrigan like a teacher.
“Then why couldn’t you just march back into my world and kick the Milesian’s collective butts?”
“As my daughter was trying to patiently explain to you, a trowthe is a powerful thing.”
“You gave the Milesian’s your trowthe?”
“We promised them that we would never use magic to destroy them. If we tried, we would be ourselves, destroyed.”
“Still, how did the Tuatha get stuck with the land of Crazy?”
“We were given the world below while the Milesian’s took the world above. At first we thought it was ill fortune, the madness – but then we found out that the Milesian Druids knew of the insanity impregnated in the land.”
“Still why aren’t you and Dagda and Birghid crazy...well, you’re all a bit nutty, but why aren’t you certifiable, like...”
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“Like Cliodhna?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we take holidays in your world, but we have to return to ours after our visas expire...about eighteen of your years.”
“My mother is from here, right, and I’m almost eighteen, right. Does that mean I have to live here?”
The Morrigan smiled, all three of them. “Welcome home.”
“And it takes awhile to renew the visas?” Thinking about having to live in this crazy place was something I didn’t really want to consider.
“Oh, it depends...”
There it was again, that knowing smile and the dead eyes. “Depends on what?”
“Because there is no High King,” said H in a self-defeated tone, “all visas have to go through...”
“Me,” finished The Morrigan. She stroked her chin. “That reminds me. Isn’t your visa almost up, dear?”
H examined her feet but said nothing.
“Well,” I said as bracingly as I could, “that clears up a few things. Cliodhna is spiraling out of control because she’s trying to kill my mom, right?”
“Sort of,” mumbled H.
I wasn’t used to seeing her like this, almost defeated. “What do you mean sort of?”
“Muirne,” said The Morrigan, “is Tuatha, so the trowthe doesn’t really apply to her.”
“Right, so I sign your contract, do the cauldron thing, get back to the Library, defeat Cliodhna save my mom and turn eighteen.”
The Morrigan nodded. “That’s about it.”
“So, where do I sign?”
H grabbed me and pulled me away from her mother. “Are you absolutely insane?” she hissed into my ear.
I shrugged. “Everybody else seems that way, so why not join the family.”
Semias had just waddled into the room. He was sharpening a dagger on a wet stone. I waved at him and he waved the dagger at me, as though promising me the pointed end.
“Have you thought what she might want you to swear your trowthe to?”
“Probably wants to force me to be king.”
“Don’t laugh. That’s not so far fetched.” She rapped me on the head. “She needs somebody she can easily control.”
“Hey, you’ve got to stop beating up on me.”
“Sorry,” she said with only a little bit of sincerity this time. “Have you thought how you can defeat Cliodhna?”
“I was hoping you might come up with something...”
“Then there is Goll, Conan, Art and Garra. They know you’re alive. They’ll want to kill you.”
“Why? I know that’s what people do in Faerie, but why? I mean, I just met Goll...he’s the guy with the man-bun right?”
“Your existence challenges him. Your father was the Chief, that means you, should be the next Chief.”
“I don’t want to be Chief. I don’t want to be King. I just want people to stop trying to kill me and my family. That’s all I want...”
“You can’t run from who you are,” stated H.
“And who is that? I know what people keep telling me, but right now, I’m just Will.” I turned to The Morrigan. “Where do I sign?”
She pursed her red lips together. “You don’t sign, dear. You just say: I give Morrigan my trowthe to be used at her discretion, when she desires, how she desires, where she desires.”
I felt H stiffen. Leaning in close to her, I whispered in her ear. “I want you to tell me that all Tuatha De Danann are liars.”
“What?”
“Just do it and pray your mom doesn’t catch on.”
She nodded. “All Tuatha De Danann are liars.”
This outburst caught The Morgan off balance and before she could say anything I rushed on.
“I Fionn of the Tuata De Danann give you my trowthe to be used at her discretion, when she desires, how she desires, where she desires.”
The Morrigan clapped her multiple hands together. Apparently she had been so focused on me that her daughter’s outburst about liars had gone nearly entirely unnoticed.
Semias’ ugly forehead was twisted up in malevolent thought as he was trying to figure things out.
“Semias, warm up the Jacuzzi, we’re going for a dip.” She turned and left the room calling for her husband. “Dagda, get your swimming trunks, you know, the ones I love, the little fish net affair.” And with that she left the room, followed by a scowling Semias cursing the use of the word Jacuzzi.
“What was that bit about the Tuatha being liars?”
“It’s true right?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s hope we never have to use it.”
When I saw the Jacuzzi I knew I was cooked.
“Are you kidding me?” I said staring at the great caldron with the fire blazing beneath it. “You want me to get into that?”
“If you want to get back to the Library and to your mommy you will have to,” said all three Morrigans at once. I was still finding it difficult talking to a chorus. Did I detect a tone of ridicule when The Morrigan had said ‘mommy?’ Did everyone in Faerie have mother issues. Freud would have loved this place, and it was looking like I would also have to learn to love it when I turned eighteen.
H inserted herself between her mothers and me. I could understand why, because I was starting to burn about the ears, a sure sign I was beginning to get upset.
“You don’t like me,” said The Morrigan lips pouting.
“No, it’s not that,” I responded. “It’s just you remind me of a praying mantis.”
She looked amused, all three of them did. “A praying mantis?”
“Yes, you know the one that eats her mate after...” that’s where I ran out of courage and started to blush.